WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF
Travelling at Mach speeds underground might soon be a reality, and Elon Musk is getting closer to realising it.
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Elon Musk’s Boring Company’s excavation of a transportation tunnel beneath the Las Vegas Convention Center has finally been completed, and with it Elon Musk’s vision of futuristic Mach 1 Hyperloop trains and autonomous cars travelling underground at astonishing speeds has just gotten that little bit closer. The company tweeted the news on Friday writing that it was a “breakthrough.”
The post included a retweet of a video from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority that showed an excavator breaking through the ground at the end of the tunnel.
Excavation is complete for the first of two tunnels that will comprise Elon Musk’s innovative underground transportation system beneath the LVCC campus. The project is scheduled to debut in January 2021. pic.twitter.com/CwpxEWDXYc
— LVCVA (@LVCVA) February 14, 2020
The excavation is part of a project by the Boring Company that includes the design, construction and operation of a $48.6 million underground transit line for the Las Vegas Convention Center
The new transit line will be known as the Loop and will be used by autonomous transportation pods, that the company showed off a while ago, based on Tesla’s Model X chassis, that can carry up to 16 passengers at speeds of up to 155 MPH along its underground tunnels.
The Las Vegas Convention Center has been undergoing expansions since last year, adding some additional segments which include 600,000 square feet of additional, rentable, exhibition space. The Loop’s job will be to connect the two buildings and minimize the 15 minute walk down to a 1 minute ride.
This is not the only tunnel the Boring Company plans on digging either, not by a long shot. The ambitious firm plans to connect, amongst other areas, the downtown Las Vegas, the Vegas strip, and even Las Vegas with Los Angeles.
The current tunnel is one of two that will be dug under the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. The project saw the Boring Company’s crew dig 40 feet underground for nearly a mile for the past three months.
“This marks an important milestone in the future of transportation,” Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority CEO Steve Hill told the Reno Gazette Journal.
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