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Among the sprawling commercial ventures of Elon Musk, The Boring Company could be the most secretive.
The tunnel company is currently working on a project to reduce traffic in Los Angeles – but Musk's comments on a Recode podcast released on Friday seem to hint at ambitions far beyond a simple tunnel.
"We hope to eventually create a network of tunnels in the big city of Los Angeles," SpaceX and Tesla CEO told Kara Swisher. "And I think it's really the key to moving quickly in the city.You have to go 3D."
By 3-D, Musk means creating more tunnels – tunnels that sink deeper into the earth's crust, where they can intersect, overlap, and do things that traditional tunnels did not do because of the high cost of their drilling.
"The cost of building tunnels has always been prohibitive," said Musk. "And they have also been incredibly slow."
His solution? A less expensive tunneling solution.
"You could certainly have a subway system with many layers of tunnels," said Musk, "but the tunnels are so expensive that they do not, but you can go down to 100 levels if you want it, you could have 100 layers of superimposed tunnels … the key is a considerable improvement in tunneling technology.It's the pivot, it's basically what it stands for. "
Read more: The Elon Musk Tunnel Company has just unveiled its plan to transport people from Los Angeles to Dodgers Stadium in just four minutes – but the timing of the announcement is curious
The Boring Company says on its website that it can increase the efficiency of tunnel boring machines, or tunnel boring machines, which are incredibly large, slow and expensive, reducing the tunnel's diameter by 50% and making the machine work. twenty four seven.
The company had previously posted photos of its progress on Instagram – with the flamethrower (uh, * not * a flamethrower), sold for fundraising – but on Friday the account was empty, at the end of the day. except for some logos. This follows Musk's removal of his personal Instagram account in August.
Then there is the question of capacity. Musk told Recode that he had never met a single person using the subway, a statement that echoed his fears about public transportation. This is probably behind Musk's vision of traveling in "skates" or mini-pods that will carry far fewer people per vehicle than traditional subway cars. As many transportation experts have pointed out, this significantly reduces the total capacity of the system.
Of course, hundreds of layers of tunnels could help solve this capacity problem.
"The tunnels are really so underrated," said Musk.
Read the full interview of Recode here.
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