Elon Musk’s tunnel company starts test operations under Las Vegas

The Boring Company has started passenger test operations in one of its tunnels. A 45-minute walk becomes a 2-minute drive. Elon Musk’s The Boring Company has begun testing an approximately 1.3 km tunnel under the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC) with passengers. They get into Teslas and drive for about two minutes to get off at the other end. The route consists of two tubes, has only one start and end station, which are laid out above ground, and one station in between.

The participants published numerous photos and videos of their journeys on the internet. The testers cannot drive into the tunnel with their own Teslas, rather it is a shuttle service with vehicles provided. Tesla appears to be using its entire range of vehicles.

The route can be walked above ground in around 45 minutes, a ride on the Tesla shuttle takes around two minutes. In addition, there is the waiting time until a Tesla can be climbed.

The tunnel cost the fair about $ 52.5 million. According to a report by The BusinessInsider, regular operations should start in a few weeks. The slow speed is still a problem if the system should ever be expanded. The future is to a second line, the hotels and casinos of the operator Caesars Entertainment connect.

According to a previous report, it is less than 90 km / h. So far, the people mover proposed by Musk instead of Tesla cars has not existed – a bus that fits into the tube and can transport several people autonomously.

Musk got the idea of ​​starting a tunneling company through long traffic jams. At the end of 2016, he decided to build a tunnel boring machine and just start drilling. The first tunnel was built under SpaceX’s Hawthorne site. The Boring Company relies on its own tunnel boring machine that is supposed to work particularly quickly. A conventional tunnel boring machine takes about eight to twelve weeks for a mile of tunnel, about 1.6 km. The Boring Company’s own tunnel boring machine covers this distance in one week.