Elon Musk’s ‘boring’ video of a Hyperloop sled is anything but

By Luke Dormehl Published May 14, 2017

Want a slightly terrifying glimpse at what the future of transportation will look like? Elon Musk is more than happy to oblige.

On Friday, the Tesla and SpaceX entrepreneur dropped a bunch of images and one video online showing that ground has officially broken on his latest project, the so-called “Boring Company.” While we appreciate a good pun, never has a company name seemed less appropriate.

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The “boring” in question refers to the boring of a network of underground tunnels which will, Musk hopes, resolve the traffic problems that can cause city roads to grind to a standstill. The attention-grabbing video he posted shows the testing of a high-speed electric sled traveling through one such tunnel, which could one day transport cars at a speed of 125 miles per hour.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BT_itC8h0Cx/

He also spelled out California’s first tunnel route The Boring Company will be offering: Los Angeles International Airport to Culver City, Santa Monica, Westwood and Sherman Oaks. He claims that future tunnels will cover all of greater Los Angeles. The journey between Westwood and LAX can normally take more than half an hour in everyday LA traffic, but Musk says travel duration could be slashed to just five minutes using his high-speed tunnel. He also notes that the underground tunnels will allow automatic switching from one tunnel to the next.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BT_gxWhB1_8/

Accompanying images meanwhile depict the boring machine segments being lowered into the starter tunnel. “Going through final assembly,” a caption reads. “Will be a few hundred feet long when complete.”

There are still plenty of questions still to be answered about the work, but we can’t wait for this to come to fruition.

Although The Boring Company has chosen to name its first boring machine Godot — after the Samuel Beckett play about a waiting for a person who never turns up — maybe Musk is hinting we will be waiting a little while before we get to ride this thing.

Former Contributor

I'm a UK-based tech writer covering Cool Tech at Digital Trends. I've also written for Fast Company, Wired, the Guardian…

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