Elon Musk’s Boring Company tunnel is “disturbingly long”, apparently

Tom Bedford October 23, 2018

Elon Musk has provided some more information on the upcoming opening of The Boring Company’s first rapid transit tunnel.

Musk previously confirmed in October that the tunnel would be set for a December opening. The tunnel in question travels for two miles under the SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, Los Angeles and is now set to open to the public on 10 December, with free rides offered from 11 December.

Now Musk has shone more light on the tunnel with a video taken from a walk down the track. The sped-up video is exactly what you’d expect from footage of an underground railway.

Prefacing the tweet, Musk described the tunnels as “disturbingly long” and suggested the 10 December opening party will be very “one-dimensional”.

The Boring Company’s transit tunnel works by moving platforms along electric “skates” at 155mph. At this speed, the platform takes less than a minute to complete the test track. Each platform can hold between eight to 16 passengers, or one vehicle.

Before opening the tunnel as a viable transit system, the Boring Company needs to have its projects approved by the county and city government of each tunnel. Only then can the company shuttle paying customers.

However, given the infamous geological and tectonic instability of Los Angeles, it remains to be seen if drilling multiple massive holes and firing high-speed platforms through the ground is a good idea.

Pending the success of its Hawthorne route, the Boring Company has several other projects in the works. These include a hyperloop between downtown Chicago and its O’Hare International Airport, the L.A. Dodger Stadium and East Hollywood, L.A. and San Francisco, and New York and Washington D.C.

This isn’t the first time Musk has said a Boring Co tunnel is near completion – in May, he posted an Instagram video claiming “Pending final regulatory approvals, we will be offering free rides to the public in a few months”.

Since the announcement was made on Twitter, however, it should be taken with a pinch of salt – Musk’s previous tweets have seen him sued for libel, mistakenly endorsing a cult, and booted out of power at Tesla. So, not everything he tweets should be taken for granted – including his desire to build a giant fighting robot.