The Boring Company Ilona Mask will build a tunnel along the 405 highway in Los Angeles

Musk talks about the plans of The Boring Company at a conference in Los Angeles

On Thursday, Ilon Musk announced The Boring Company’s plans to build a proof-of-concept tunnel along Highway 405 in Lon Angeles. The first step is to create a section of a tunnel about 4 kilometers long. It is planned to be laid in order for the company to set up experiments before starting the construction of "civilian" underground roads.

Los Angeles metro experts will help The Boring Company to conduct an examination to find out whether the tunnel and the work on its creation will not affect the already existing infrastructure of the city’s underground transport. In general, officials fully support Mask in his endeavors - at least for now.

At this stage, The Boring Company is all in preparation for the start of real work. This is not so easy to do, since all infrastructure projects are quite complex. Moreover, this complexity concerns not so much the technical side of the matter (although this too), as administrative and bureaucratic aspects. Licenses need just sea. For example, Mask recently said that he was preparing an application for laying the next tunnel. The volume of this application is about 600 pages.

All this is quite difficult to implement, even taking into account the fact that the state of California supports the entrepreneur, as well as the leadership of Los Angeles itself. The duration of the approval stage for the creation of a more or less long tunnel can be from one to two years. So far, the entrepreneur does not say anything about when, in fact, the implementation of work will begin.

Not so long ago, Musk shared a video of the first paved tunnel with a ready-made infrastructure and a technical highway, which should soon be dismantled. But the test tunnels are not what Musk founded The Boring Company for. The main work is still ahead, and it will be to create a large-scale transportation network both in Los Angeles and in other regions.

According to the entrepreneur, the network of tunnels from The Boring Company will compete with the subway of Los Angeles. This is also because one trip will cost the Boring Company client only $ 1 - this is significantly less than in the case of the metro. And it is worth recalling that the trip is carried out inside your own car, so that both time and gasoline are saved.



The speed of movement through the tunnel will be about 200 km / h, so that the average duration of the trip will not exceed 10 minutes. According to Mask, the tunnels are one of the best ways to solve the traffic problem in megalopolises. The idea of ​​creating a company for drilling transport tunnels came to Mask while standing in a massive traffic jam. Practically daily delays have gotten so much a businessman that he decided to pave the way for himself and other such sufferers under the ground.

When the head of The Boring Company speaks of a network of tunnels, it implies not just an extensive infrastructure. Tunnels should be multi-level, with the possibility of transition from level to level in order to avoid the possibility of the formation of an underground tube. For example, it can be assumed that one of the platforms on which the cars are standing has broken - in this case, a traffic jam will form behind it, and the tunnel will be just clogged with cars. For this case, additional tunnels are provided, through which the cars that have fallen into the “traffic jam” will follow.

Currently, the company is looking for an opportunity to accelerate the construction of tunnels. The drilling machine, according to Mask, is several times slower than a snail, so it is extremely important to increase the rate of penetration. This will require research and development work, which will require additional time.


By the way, the Boring Company decided to use the ground that was thrown out while digging tunnels. From it decided to create something like Lego blocks. The optimal composition for such blocks has now been found - in fact, the earth is compressed under enormous pressure with the addition of concrete. The cost of a block of such material is only 10 cents. And they are suitable not only for the creation of tunnels, but also for the construction of buildings and structures. It may well be that Musk will soon build a candlestick brick factory of his own design.