Elon Musk releases first image of new tunnel under Los Angeles, announces expansions to LAX and 101

Elon Musk released this weekend the first image of the Boring Company’s new tunnel under Los Angeles and also expanded on the company’s plans for future segments of the project.

Earlier this summer, Musk ‘s new startup already confirmed having dug a 160-ft tunnel with an entrance in SpaceX’s parking lot in Hawthorne.

In August, they proposed a new 2- mile (3.2 km) expansion of the tunnel under 120th street all the way to Hawthorne Boulevard along the local airport.

The city of Hawthorn quickly gave them the green light to expand the tunnel and continue testing their boring techniques in their jurisdiction.

Here’s the section where they have been approved to dig the 2-mile long tunnel:

Today, Musk confirmed that they have already dug 500 ft of the 2-mile long tunnel, which they expect to complete in “3 to 4 months”.

He released the first images of the progress:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BazkWGvAsPJ/

But maybe more interestingly, Musk even gave a tentative timeline for a significant expansion of tunnel under Los Angeles.

The executive says that he sees the tunnel stretching” the whole 405 N-S corridor from LAX to the 101 in a year or so.”

When the current 2-mile long tunnel is completed, it would only need a few more miles west to reach the 405 and the international airport (LAX), but we are talking about almost a dozen miles to reach the 101 highway.

That would be a significant tunnel project to be completed in just over a year and it would expand beyond Hawthorne into the broader Los Angeles.

Earlier this year, Musk said that he had discussed the project with the Mayor of Los Angeles who showed enthusiasm for the idea but no official support for the significant infrastructure project was announced.

The idea is to create a network of tunnels underneath the city with electric platforms lowering cars down into the tunnel system and moving them at high speed on those same electric platforms, which will apparently be powered by Tesla.

Things are obviously moving fast with the Boring Company. We learned earlier this month that they are getting a second multi-million dollar boring machine and they started on a Baltimore-DC underground Hyperloop project.