Tesla founder Elon Musk has unveiled a mile-long prototype underground tunnel in Los Angeles which is designed to transport cars at high speed around the city in an effort to reduce traffic congestion.
The tunnel, built by Musk’s Boring Company, would use modified electric cars lowered into the tunnel, slotted onto tracks and then traveling at speeds up to 150 miles per hour.
“The profound breakthrough is very simple: it’s the ability to turn a normal car into a passively stable vehicle by adding the deployable tracking wheels, stabilizing wheels, so that it can travel at high speed through a small tunnel,” explained Musk. “The way the loop will work is you will have main arteries that are travelling at 150mph and when you want to go to an exit, you will have an off ramp. So you can travel the vast majority of your journey without stopping at 150mph and only slow down when you get to your exit, and then automatically transfer from one tunnel to another. It’s like a 3D highway system underground basically.”
Musk added that vehicle attachments costing $200-$300 could eventually be fixed to any fully autonomous electric vehicle, for use in the tunnel and claims they would not interfere with the vehicle’s normal operation.
Musk says his Boring Company had built the tunnel segment [near Hawthorne] for $10 million.
