Elon Musk introduced the first underground tunnel for cars

19 December 2018

The first underground went electric crossover Tesla Model X

The great and mighty Elon Musk unveiled the first offspring of the new project. A couple of years ago, the billionaire promised to begin to drill the earth to create a complex system of underground tunnels for cars. Many laughed that the Mask is trying to reinvent the metro. To the new metro startup so far away, but one car has already traveled.

Another brainchild of the ingenious designer, is called the Boring Company. The company name plays on the homonyms boring ("drilling") and boring ("boring"). However, the project promised to be boring: Musk promised to get rid of traffic jams, even the most densely populated cities. This required to develop your own tunnelling machine that can dig tunnels at an unprecedented rate and record low cost.

The first tunnel Boring The Company with a length of 2.3 kilometres held under the headquarters of SpaceX in Hawthorne, California. Given the width of only 4.3 meters, it holds only one machine. However, the Mask originally and speech is not conducted on the bi-directional tunnels: the smaller the diameter, the less the installation cost.

If we're talking about money, then immediately talk about the cost of the first tunnel: costs are estimated at $10 million. Thus to speak about the beginning of the real operation too early, because the first section will be used to test and optimise the technology.

If this is something Elon Musk is still far away from the original plan. According to the original idea of a billionaire, vehicles under the land must not move independently. They were placed on an electric flat platform that carried them. But in reality, the car is still driving itself. For movement, use of special side wheel, which are mounted in the center front of "real" wheels. The cost of such a device is estimated at $200-300.

In the tunnel are allowed to only electric cars and only offline, so that the owners of regular cars, even the most modern, left out in the cold. But Musk will be allowed to go underground alcatara other manufacturers. Maximum speed — 240 km/h.

In the future, the tunnels will run a special platform, which will carry pedestrians and cyclists.