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Taking a Spin Through the Boring Company's Test Tunnel

Elon Musk's subterranean traffic-beating vision is finally coming to life

By Rain Noe - December 21, 2018

in Cars

People seem to love crapping on Elon Musk, but give the guy a break. The man started PayPal and Tesla, he's launching and landing rockets, he figured out how to sell re-branded roofing torches as flamethrowers to the tune of $4 million, and now his Boring Company has completed their first test tunnel.

There are wrinkles to be ironed out, sure, but here's what it's like driving through the 1.14 mile tunnel:

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I'm sure they can smooth out the bumpy ride, but two things I'm curious about:

1) What happens if a car breaks down in the tunnel? And,

2) Assuming the goal is for two-way traffic, would it be cheaper to make one larger tunnel, two parallel tunnels, or some funky dual-chamber tunnel shaped the way binocular vision is depicted in movies?

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Brian Hackett

5 years ago

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I'm no structural engineer, but i think the structural stress on one big tunnel vs. two smaller tunnels would make the latter more practical.

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Daniel Sellers

6 years ago

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The better question logistically is how do you prevent the elevator from becoming a bottle neck that jams up the tunnel?

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Brad Johnson

6 years ago

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It took 2 years and $40 million (yes 40... the video above is incorrect) to build 1 mile of tunnel on mostly private land. Imagine the hurdles ahead when trying to actually implement this under public (and private land which he doesn't own) land. Sounds like a nightmare, but I guess at least its good that someone is trying to fix our public transit problem.

Who give an F about a tunnel from Space X to Dodgers stadium though? The real tunnel we need is from LAX to the train station... but Elon doesn't really care about what is needed. It's more about his ego than anything else.

To address your questions:
1. I don't think that is something he considered. Nor does he think his cars/batteries can catch fire.
Here is an excerpt from his Boring Company website:
Q: What if there's a fire?
A: The risk of fire is very low, as the tunnel lining is non-flammable (concrete) and no flammable materials (like asphalt) are added. Additionally, there is no live electric third rail, minimizing potential fire sources and limiting the fire's main energy source to that of the vehicle's battery. Additionally, unlike a live rail system, the effects of {unlikely} water intrusion are minimal, as autonomous electric vehicles can safely "handle some rain."

2. He hasn't addressed 2 way traffic, although he has said there would be "side arteries" in addition to the main artery (tunnel) to allow traffic on and off. Of course, he also said the sleds would travel 150MPH, not the extremely bumpy 45MPH that his test Teslas were able to achieve.

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- Nathan D.
  
  Brad Johnson
  
  6 years ago
  
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  You can very easily spend 40 million building the first one of anything. That's probably like half the R&D budget for a FitBit.
  
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Gabriel Prero

6 years ago

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I appreciate your tone on this, Rain. Seeing this all over news sites yesterday, and how everyone's crapping that his tunnel is a "failure," they don't seem to realize that this is essentially a PROTOTYPE. And the public never sees prototypes. I'm thinking for that very reason. So thanks for cutting Tesla some slack.

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