Here's a little quest for you: find another company who's known for building pseudo-flamethrowers and a network of underground tunnels with the aim to ease congestion in the inner cities? The Boring Company might just be the only one.

As one of Elon Musk's other businesses besides Tesla, The Boring Company is anything but what its name would suggest. Its goal still is to find new and innovative means of transportation to cope with the issues of day-to-day congestion in the world's biggest urban areas.

To kick things off, The Boring Company started building a tunnel underneath L.A. last year, a tunnel that links SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California to the suburbs. Now, Musk has presented a sped-up walkthrough of the entire 2-mile-long tunnel.

A tunnel for both cars and people to ease congestion - will it work?

We've been hearing about the Boring Company's novel way to tackle heavy traffic in downtown areas for over a year now. Basically, what Musk's venture wants to do is to solve the bumper-to-bumper traffic jams in cities like L.A. by offering motorists and pedestrians an alternative to getting from A to B at the surface.

In October, Musk tweeted that the first tunnel, which is built to test the viability of the concept itself, will be opened to the public on December 10th and people will get free rides the next day to see the marvel for themselves. According to The Verge, "Musk describes this section of the L.A. tunnel as running parallel to Interstate 405 all the way to Interstate 101, with exit ramps 'every mile or so.'".

Now, the company's founder and CEO presented 30-odd-seconds video which presents the whole finished tunnel which Musk described as "disturbingly long". In reality, it's only 2 miles in length.

If everything works according to plan, the Boring Company - named that way because its desire is to make use of innovative tunnel-boring technologies - is set to build a series of tunnels, not only in L.A. but also in cities like Chicago.

The Verge reported back in June that "Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced the selection of Elon Musk’s Boring Company to build and operate a multibillion-dollar rapid transit link between O’Hare International Airport and the city’s downtown".

What is more, Musk still hopes that the Hyperloop technology will be viable in the near future to be employed in an even bigger project: back in July last year, Musk tweeted that he "just received verbal govt approval for The Boring Company to build an underground NY-Phil-Baltimore-DC Hyperloop", adding that the whole trip will take just under half an hour. As we know, Musk isn't the only one looking into a the Hyperloop technology, Virgin also planning to build hyperloop tunnels around the world, including a tunnel that would link Mumbai to Pune.

As for L.A., Musk plans to have a full-size network of tunnels ready in just a few years, a plan that's been received with mixed opinions from experts who argue the viability of the idea, how useful it will end up being and whether or not the Boring Company can live to its ambitious claims of digging faster and cheaper than anyone in the market. As part of the upcoming network, the Boring company "wants to build a subway-like line from Los Feliz or East Hollywood that would ferry Dodger fans to the ballpark in about 4 minutes and at the cost of about $1," according to an article from Curbed.

It all seems crazy but a man like Elon Musk, who's very much been in the public eye lately for crazy stunts, is expected to try and accomplish such almost unfathomable goals. Let's hope the project doesn't go off the rails!

Further Reading

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

Elon Musk Got the Green Light for The Boring Company to Start Digging in Washington DC

Elon Musk and The Boring Company to Sell Lego-Like Bricks for Fun Projects, Affordable Housing

Elon Musk's The Boring Company Will Build a Transit Loop O'Hare Airport and Downtown Chicago.

Read more about The Boring Company.

Check out everything we’ve got on Elon Musk