Elon Musk Says The Boring Company's First Tunnel Will be Open by December 10; Is it All Smoke and Mirrors?

TopSpeed

By Jonathan Lopez

Published Oct 23, 2018

… or are we on the verge of something big?

While most folks know Elon Musk for companies like Tesla and SpaceX, the engineer/investor/business mogul/tech personality also has a number of side projects, including an organization dubbed The Boring Company, which seeks to bring underground high-speed all-electric transportation to the masses. Now, The Boring Company is gearing up to unveil its first completed tunnel in Los Angeles.

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This new tunnel will a first from The Boring Company and will connect the SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne to a parking lot on Crenshaw Boulevard. At around a mile in length, the new tunnel itself isn’t all that impressive, but rather, it’ll be put to use as a proof of concept for the organizations new zero-emission, high-speed, all-electric transportation “pods.” Fully operational, these pods are expected to top out at 125 to 150 mph.

For now, the company will offer the public free rides following an “opening event” at the tunnel on December 10th.

The Boring Company reportedly came about after Musk grew tired of dealing with Los Angeles’ notorious traffic, prompting a search for a better solution than surface streets littered with cars. Los Angeles has rather poor public transport compared to most other major U.S. cities, so a novel underground network seems like a good fit.

Since the company was founded, Musk has leveraged fan interest in his various other ventures to hype The Boring Company. He even managed to raise a bit of capital by selling novelty flamethrowers at $500 a pop.

Dubbed the “Dugout Loop,” The Boring Company estimates average trip length at a mere 4 minutes. Pricing will be set at $1 per ticket, which is extremely inexpensive, all things considered

The Boring Company is also working on additional projects outside of LA, including Maryland and Chicago.

Hopefully, all goes well, as easing traffic in Los Angeles is something we can all get behind. If successful, the transportation pod technology could carry over to other major metropolitan centers around the country.

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