Elon Musk’s tunnel vision

Passengers can hitch a 240km/h ride in Elon Musk’s Boring Company tunnels for a US$1, once it’s ready.

And a start could be made early next year, all going to plan.

The electric Loop shuttles could take 16 passengers 17.7km between Los Angeles international airport and downtown LA in eight minutes.

Musk released more details about the Boring Company’s “personalised mass transit” system planned under LA at an informal gathering last week, which included project leader Steven Davis, Electrek reports.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5V_VzRrSBI

The presentation restated many points already made public since the tunnel plan was announced more than a year ago, but included some new details.

The main difference between the tunnel plan and existing mass transit systems like subways is that many more stations are planned to get in and out of the transit system, but those stations will generally be much smaller than a subway station.

That’s expected to offer more efficient transport closer to the passenger’s destination without having to stop at many different stations, like a subway.

The Boring Company also plans to eventually have many different levels and lanes of tunnels, making the network more similar to a highway system, but it will only enable the transport of the Boring Company’s autonomous and electric pods inside a ‘Loop’.

Musk says a US$1 fare is planned.

Reducing tunnel construction costs is key, such as making concrete on site for reinforcement walls at the same time as digging the tunnel.

A locomotive has been converted to work with two Tesla Model 3 electric motors and a battery pack, to pull fill from the tunnels more efficiently and use it to make bricks which could sell for US10 cents each for structures like houses.

Dirt removal can represent up to 15% of tunnel costs.

Increasing the boring machine’s speed by boosting its power using Tesla batteries could also reduce costs.

The Boring Company expects its second tunnelling machine will be a hybrid between a traditional one and its new generation borer. A third developed fully by the company is also planned.

Tunnelling is expected to be deep enough to avoid nuisances such as noise.