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Elon Musk has given a glimpse into the underground network of tunnels he’s building to help people avoid travelling through LA traffic.
The tech mogul shared a clip on Instagram from inside the first tunnel, which he revealed will run from LAX to Culver City, Santa Monica, Westwood and Sherman Oaks. It’s all part of his venture The Boring Company, a recently-formed tunnelling and infrastructure firm.
Musk also posted a test run of the electric sled that would transport cars at 125 mph (200 km/h) through the tunnels, writing alongside it: “Warning, this may cause motion sickness or seizures”.
It shows the sled whizzing along in the dark, and yes, the speed at which it’s going might indeed make you feel like you’re on some sort of fairground ride.
The Tesla and SpaceX boss revealed that the sled would automatically switch from one tunnel to the next, meaning you would be able to travel from Westwood, a neighbourhood in LA, to LAX in just five minutes.
And in another video, Musk gave an idea of how some of The Boring Company machinery works – including a rotating cutterhead that will cut through underground rock. He wrote it is currently operating at standard industry speed, but says the firm is “planning to jack this up by a factor of ten or more”.
These latest updates are all a glimpse of the ongoing processes bringing the first tunnel of the network, which he hopes will eventually cover all of greater LA, to life.
The Boring Company began after Musk tweeted earlier this year that he wanted to bore a tunnel between his house and office to cut out the traffic he had to sit in.
According to Musk’s Twitter, digging for the tunnels started back in January. He has since updated his followers on things like must-have merchandise for the company – yes, he has made hats with The Boring Company slogan on.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 6, 2017
And let’s not forget there have also been updates of his pet snail Gary…
Musk wrote: “The race between Gary, our pet snail who lives in a pineapple, and Godot, our tunnel boring machine, begins soon!”
