Blog: Elon Musk’s Boring Co. to show off Los Angeles transportation tunnels – USA TODAY

LOS ANGELES — After months of wondering what was going on beneath their feet, outsiders are finally going to get a look Tuesday at the transportation tunnels being dug by Elon Musk’s Boring Co.

The billionaire Musk has invited media to a Boring Co. evening event in Hawthorne, the Los Angeles suburb that’s home to the SpaceX rocket factory and Tesla’s electric car design studio. Musk is CEO of both SpaceX and Tesla.

Musk is expected to show off a tunnel that’s an outgrowth of the hyperloop concept that he has promoted. At very least, it will foreshadow how cars can be put on platforms and whisked through an underground tube as a way of avoiding freeway congestion. At a maximum, the tunnels could be configured in line with the hyperloop concept, acting like pneumatic tubes in office buildings in which air pushes cylinders through the pipes.

Several ventures are now trying to develop hyperloop systems with vehicles that can travel at speeds up to 600 mph.

Musk is known for a wide range of interests that have become lucrative businesses. SpaceX has become a successful low-cost launcher of rockets. Tesla is wowing the automotive world with its electric cars. The home rooftop solar business formerly known as SolarCity has been folded into Tesla.

But frustrated by Los Angeles’ notoriously sluggish traffic, Musk took an interest in tunneling. He obtained a tunneling machine and started digging, hoping to find ways the lower the costs of boring holes in the ground. 

Now that Musk has a demonstration tunnel in Hawthorne, it’s yet to see what comes next. A plan to dig a tunnel under the San Diego Freeway, Interstate 405, on Los Angeles’ west side, was shelved after encountering local opposition. But the Boring Co. is talking about a tunnel to Dodger Stadium running about 3.6 miles as a new project.

 

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