Elon Musk’s Boring Company announces completion and launch of first tunnel by December

Elon Musk announced that his Boring Company is “almost done” with its first test tunnel under Los Angeles and they plan to open the project to the public around December 10.

At this point, the startup has several projects underway in Los Angeles and in other regions of the country, like in Chicago and Maryland.

The company said that it expects its first full system demonstration will be a short new tunnel and ‘loop’ to get to Dodger Stadium in 4 minutes.

But they have another demonstration tunnel under Hawthorne.

It starts in a parking lot on Crenshaw Boulevard on the other side of SpaceX’s headquarters and the tunnel follows 120th street.

When we visited the tunnel this summer, it was about 3/4 of mile long. The company has been talking about making it a mile long.

Now Musk announced that it is ‘almost done’ and it should open on December 10:

Opens Dec 10

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 22, 2018

Musk specified that they plan an “opening event” for that night and that the tunnel will be opened for free rides to the public the next day.

Based on my understanding, those rides won’t be for transportation but to help the public understand the tunnel boring and loop transportation technologies that they are developing.

The startup is developing its electric skate system to move people inside the tunnel.

Musk said that 155 mph (250 km/h) is going to be the top speed inside the test tunnel, which they also eventually want to use for the SpaceX hyperloop pod competition.

Earlier this year, they released a video of a Tesla Model X accelerating on rails inside the tunnel.

The CEO also said that Tesla will build the ‘pods’ for the Boring Company’s Loop system, like the ones they plan to deploy in tunnels under Los Angeles, starting with the ‘Dugout loop’ to the Dodger Stadium, and the one between the Chicago Airport and downtown Chicago.

The startup started building the first test station for its tunnel:

O’Leary Station taking shape pic.twitter.com/O25AhFBnxA

— The Boring Company (@boringcompany) October 19, 2018

Several of the company’s full-scale projects are starting to take shape, but it looks like December 10 might be the first chance for the public to experience what it would be like to travel in a Boring Company loop.