December 18, Elon Musk announced the opening of the first underground tunnel The Boring Company. The test route near the town of Horton, electric allows you to move on rails at a speed of 241 km/h. the Leading TV program CBS This Morning Gayle king was able to ride through the underground tunnel and learn from Elon musk the history of the project. Speed trip and the interviews were filmed on video.
According to Elon musk, the idea to create an underground tunnel came to him a couple of years ago. Then he got tired of long traffic jams on the roads and thought that people need to try something new, or they will continue to be stuck in traffic jams most of his life.
In his opinion, the best solution was to create a safe route under the ground. He realized that if the car will move along the rails included with system stop when approaching other objects, vehicles will never collide with each other. With these thoughts he created The Boring Company.
President of the new company it has appointed Steve Davis, engineer of the space company SpaceX. None of them had any experience in digging and building tunnels. Elon remembered that Davis told him:
“Learn this from scratch! Probably the first day you’re not the best in the business. But then you… You can do it!”
Elon knew that if he will not be able to reduce the cost of digging a tunnel at least 10 times than the competition, his plan was pointless. As a rule, much money companies spent on transporting the excavated soil to the surface, but The Boring decided not to. She simply began to use the vacant soil for production of bricks — each unit they cost only 10 cents. In the end, instead of the expected $ 900 million that the company spent on the digging of only 10 million.
The project, of course, caused some anxiety among the population. Despite the fact that the company has sent letters to them, some people found out about the tunnel towards the completion of its construction. Also Elon Musk had intended to dig the second tunnel in the area of Brentwood, however, he was prevented community groups who submitted on the company to court for a waiver of environmental review.
The diameter of The tunnel Boring is much narrower than in the metro. However, Elon Musk is confident in its security and it has the answer to all of the main concerns. He is confident that the cars will not collide with each other. It can drive only cars with autopilot — they automatically activate the brake when approaching another vehicle.
Also people are afraid that the tunnel will collapse during an earthquake — after all, California is a seismically active area. Elon Musk has announced that the earthquake cause more damage on the surface and not underground. As an example, he cited the earthquake in Mexico city in 1968, where not damaged, no passengers in the subway.
What do you think, what danger posed by the tunnels, The Boring? Their assumptions it is possible to write in the comments or in our Telegram chat.