Tech pioneer Elon Musk has revealed images of his inaugural tunneling machine, which could soon plow through the earth under Los Angeles to create a futurist network of underpasses for vehicles.
The SpaceX founder is devoting part of his busy innovation schedule to a new project dubbed the ‘Boring Company,’ which aims to alleviate traffic headaches with a series of high speed subterranean tunnels.
Musk is hoping to construct the first tunnel from LAX Airport to Culver City, Santa Monica and Sherman Oaks. One of the machines used to cut car-sized holes underground will be ‘Godot’ – a circular tunnel boring device.
“Naming theme for tunnel boring machines will be poems & plays,” Musk said on Twitter. “First machine is Godot. Still waiting… Don’t know why, when or where.”
Posting an image online of an early Boring Company ‘entry tunnel,’ Musk said: “Future tunnels will cover all of greater LA.”
Taking cars from busy city streets, the project would see vehicles placed on a skate-like platform capable of reaching speeds of up to 200km per hour.
Musk hopes the project will yield a “3D network of tunnels to alleviate congestion.”
“There’s no real limit to how many levels of tunnel you can have,” Musk explained in an April TedTalk. “The deepest mines are much deeper than the tallest buildings are tall, so you can alleviate any arbitrary level of urban congestion with a 3D tunnel network.”
He added that tunnels represented a better option for future transport than flying cars.
“Let’s just say that if something’s flying over your head, a whole bunch of flying cars going all over the place, that is not an anxiety-reducing situation.
“You don’t think to yourself, ‘Well, I feel better about today.’ You’re thinking, ‘Did they service their hubcap, or is it going to come off and guillotine me?’”