Why Elon Musk’s Latest Vision Is ‘Boring’
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Elon Musk took to the stage at the 2017 TED conference this past Friday to discuss, among other things, why his latest idea is boring. To be clear, Musk’s newest idea isn’t uninteresting — it involves boring (drilling a network of tunnels and related infrastructure underneath a city that could transport vehicles more efficiently).
Musk formed The Boring Company in late 2016, after dreaming up the concept while stuck in LA traffic. Eventually, Musk hopes that such a network of tunnels could ease traffic congestion and the inconveniences that go along with it. At TED, Musk showed off a video of the concept, which you can view below.
The infrastructure of such a system would include parking spots that double as elevators to this tunnel network, where cars are transported on sleds through a network of layered tunnels. The sleds will ferry vehicles at speeds reaching around 130 mph, and the system will be computer-controlled to ensure that maximum efficiency is achieved. Similarly, while above-ground rounds can really only be stacked one or two layers high, an underground system could be made up of “any number” of layered tunnels crisscrossing each other, Musk said.
Of course, such a utopian vision is still quite a ways off — and Musk even admitted that there must be a massive cost reduction in tunneling and boring technology before anything remotely close to his idea could be accomplished. And while The Boring Company may be Musk’s newest venture, he isn’t pouring all of his time into it — reportedly, he said the new company is taking up “maybe 2 to 3 percent” of his time. The rest of it is being spent on his older endeavors, namely Tesla and spaceflight corporation SpaceX.
During the TED talk, Musk also touched on a rather aggressive timeline for Tesla — specifically, he said the electric carmaker is “still on track for being able to go cross country from LA to NY by the end of the year, fully autonomous.” Tesla is also “about two years” from allowing drivers to nap during autonomous car rides.. The trick to that, Musk added, is to refine the underlying technology enough that a Tesla is “unlikely to crash in a minimum of 100 lifetimes.”
Additionally, Musk mentioned Tesla’s upcoming electric semi truck (and how he got to drive a prototype of it) and the forthcoming announcements of new gigafactories. Lastly, he reiterated some of his ambitions for SpaceX, and why he still believes reaching and colonizing Mars is so important.
