Tesla CEO Elon Musk has unveiled some innovative concepts — SpaceX, Hyperloop, advancements in solar roofing — but his latest tweets show a new interest he seems to have focused on:
Many seemed to think it was nothing more than a tongue-in-cheek reference to the infamous Los Angeles traffic he likely encountered. But if you visit his Twitter profile now, you will see that his bio has been altered to include “Tunnels (yes, tunnels)” as an endeavor, leading his followers to wonder if he is serious about starting an underground road system. The concept is to build a tunnel-boring machine (hence, The Boring Company), also known as a “mole,” to excavate tunnels to be used as underground roadways — conceivably lessening above-ground traffic.
Image Source: Civil Engineer.
It wouldn’t be the first time that Musk has expressed an affinity for tunnels. During a Q&A session at January’s Hyperloop Pod Competition, he said, “It’s a really simple and obvious idea and I wish more people would do it: build more tunnels. … If you have tunnels in cities, you would massively alleviate congestion and you could have tunnels at all different levels; you could probably have 30 layers of tunnels and completely fix the congestion problem in high-density cities. So, I strongly recommend tunnels.”
As much as any of us would love to see a decline in rush hour traffic, a project like The Boring Company is a huge and complicated undertaking. Cost and logistics aside, it could require new regulatory policy or a special grant to secure the rights of underground land. However, President-elect Donald Trump, who believes that U.S. infrastructure requires rebuilding, recently selected Musk as one of his economic advisors, so this tunneling project may at least get a strong consideration.
While we don’t know the fate of The Boring Company just yet, it will certainly be exciting to find out.
Sources: Tech Times, Fox News
Advertisement
Learn more about Electronic Products Magazine
