Elon Musk's Boring Company Finishes First Tunnel for 155mph Vegas Loop:
Last week, Musk's Boring Company finished excavating the first of two tunnels for a new transportation system that will run underneath the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC). The second tunnel will run parallel to the first, creating a loop to carry people back and forth in modified Tesla Model 3 and Model X cars.
There will be one station at the convention center's south hall, another between the central and north halls, and a third at the west hall, which is currently under construction. It takes about 15 minutes to walk from one hall to another (more if there are super-cool things like Avatar concept cars to see along the way). According to Musk, the underground cars will move at speeds up to 155 miles per hour, taking people between stations in just one minute.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority awarded a $48.7 million contract to the Boring Company last year; it's the company's first commercial contract, and they're required to test the system for three months before opening it for public use. Their goal is to move a whopping 4,000 vehicles per hour.
It took three months to excavate the first tunnel, with work taking place 40 feet underground. Musk hopes to eventually expand the transit system to other parts of Las Vegas, including the Strip and the airport, and even to have a connecting tunnel running all the way to Los Angeles; LA residents may one day be able to hop over to Vegas for an afternoon (or Vegas residents go catch a glimpse of the ocean for a few hours).
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Elon Musk'S Boring Company Finishes Digging Las Vegas Tunnels:
Elon Musk's Boring Company has completed digging a second tunnel underneath the Las Vegas Convention Center, marking the end of the first phase of the $52.5 million project to build a "people-mover" system to shuttle visitors from one side of the venue to the other. The first of the two tunnels was finished in February.
Workers will now turn their attention to completing the above-ground passenger stations on either end of the tunnels, as well as a third underground station in the middle of the system. The people-mover, which is being formally called the Convention Center Loop, is still scheduled to open to the public in January 2021 in time for the next Consumer Electronics Show — if CES happens, that is.
[...] The Loop is supposed to be able to move more than 4,000 people per hour through the tunnels in a variety of Tesla vehicles, taking a cross-campus walk that normally takes at least 15 minutes and turning it into a ride that lasts less than two minutes.
[...] The Loop will pack those passengers into Model 3s, Model Xs, and a "tram" built on the Model 3 platform that can fit between 12 and 16 passengers, according to Steve Hill, the CEO and president of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, who spoke to The Verge this week.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @10:23PM (4 children)
Heaven forbid fat-ass Americans should have to walk for a full quarter hour... that's time that could be better spent stuffing their maws with more Big Macs.
(Score: 2) by NateMich on Sunday February 23 2020, @10:34PM (2 children)
Keep in mind this is in Vegas, where it can be hot as hell during the day in the summer months.
Haven't been there in years, but a Big Mac does sound kind of good right now.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @10:54PM (1 child)
Get the Extra Big-Ass Fries with that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 24 2020, @06:49PM
well, of course! how else are you going to eat a whole claw full of fries at one time like god intended?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 24 2020, @01:44AM
That is the best dumbass-American in Vegas quip you can come up with? You're not even trying.
How about: Elon Musk spent millions in Vegas and still didn't lay as much pipe there as Donald Trump.
Or: Breaking news! Vegas Tesla's to come with video poker!
There should at least be a little sport to this.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @10:28PM (4 children)
Elong is the hottest billionaire with the most desirable dick. Musky can bury his massive cock in all our dirty love tunnels any day.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @11:28PM (1 child)
If you really loved him, you'd use an enema.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @11:36PM
Shit is nature's anal lube.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday February 24 2020, @12:29AM
He's a fag, like Seth MacFarlane without the makeup. The CIA do like their bitches to be pretty, though.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 24 2020, @12:32AM
Consider Amber Heard. She false MeToo'd Johnny Depp, maybe while cheating on him with Musk. They dated openly for a year and Musk ended it. The slime slid right off.
Also, Jeffrey Epstein didn't kill himself.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by NateMich on Sunday February 23 2020, @10:40PM (7 children)
The more it just seems like a very limited, inefficient subway system.
Perhaps once you actually can travel from city to the city it might start to make sense. Also, it might be better if they were using something like a van, rather than a passenger car.
Actually, just build a high speed subway system across the continent. That would be cool.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @10:50PM (1 child)
Can't wait to see what happens to a railcar going 155mph during a 6.5+ magnitude earthquake nearby.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 24 2020, @09:46AM
Pretty sure the metro runs on tires at least in my city
(Score: 3, Interesting) by EvilSS on Sunday February 23 2020, @11:58PM
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday February 24 2020, @01:13AM (3 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Interesting) by lentilla on Monday February 24 2020, @11:46AM (2 children)
The way I see it, this is simply a way of getting someone else to pay for proof that the Boring Company can successfully dig tunnels. The fast cars are just the means by which punters will pay to ride and investors will foot the construction bill. The real magic is getting that first contract to dig a tunnel. Once the first tunnel is delivered others will come.
From that perspective - I see this as moving humanity forward. Digging tunnels is not exactly glamorous but has many applications. If the Boring Company can improve on the state-of-the-art and dig quickly, efficiently, economically and deliver on-time and on-budget then we (humanity) have made significant progress.
In a decade or so, nobody will care about race cars speeding though a silly tunnel. History might; however; point to the time when it became economically and logistically feasible to put transport underground, thereby reducing the pox on our landscape that is highways, and preventing pedestrian deaths and inconvenience.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday February 24 2020, @12:14PM (1 child)
This is another player in the market, yes, and that's good for competition and therefore for keeping the market fair, but it's still just something mundane that we've been doing for centuries. Oh, did I say "centuries"? I must have been getting confused with "centurions" - I meant "millennia": http://www.romanaqueducts.info/aquasite/samosarchaic/index.html
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by lentilla on Monday February 24 2020, @12:59PM
You are quite correct. What I see as the potential innovation here is that a tunnel can be delivered on-time and on-budget without the decades of corruption, cronyism and political maneuvering that seems to go hand-in-hand with these kind of projects.
I am no expert in the history of the Channel Tunnel but my guess would be that it would fit all those categories mentioned above. A quick glance at Wikipedia tells me that my guess was accurate - a decade to build and "only" 80% cost overrun. The Big Dig [wikipedia.org] is another example that comes to mind: "The Big Dig was the most expensive highway project in the US, and was plagued by cost overruns, delays, leaks, design flaws, charges of poor execution and use of substandard materials, criminal arrests...". It took twenty-five years and only ran 190% over budget.
Things would be markedly improved if governments could simply say "please build a tunnel from this entry hole to this exit hole" and a construction company could say "sure, that will be 60 months and 20 billion dollars". Elon Musk already has a track record here - delivering an huge grid-connected battery [wikipedia.org] in South Australia. The important part was the cheeky wager - the battery would be complete within 100 days from signature or it was free. It was delivered on-time and on-budget. I would like to see the same things with tunnels - governments could concern themselves with infrastructure planning and payment, and they could rely on engineering experts to deliver.
Yes and yes - but until now it has most often been an extremely painful process.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Monday February 24 2020, @01:22AM (1 child)
155 MPH is roughly a mile every 25 seconds. It's what, maybe 4 miles from one end of the strip to the other? Another 3-4 miles to the airport. Lets be generous and call it all 10 miles. At top speed that's 3-4 minutes end to end. Takes time to speed up and slow down, let alone stopping at stations.
So if you're going from the Luxor to the Stratosphere you might, emphasis on might, hit 155 MPH. But you'll be there for a few seconds, and won't be stopping at, say, Ceasors palace.
Disclaimer: Haven't been to Vegas in over 10 years, hotels may have been replaced, distances may be way off, and I honestly have a better idea of how far it is from San Diego to the strip than from the Vegas airport to the strip.
My ducks are not in a row. I don't know where some of them are, and I'm pretty sure one of them is a turkey.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 24 2020, @02:57AM
Haven't seen numbers for the Model 3 or Model X, but a Tesla Model S can do 0-100mph-0 (~160kph) in a little over 10 seconds -- https://www.motortrend.com/news/the-2017-tesla-model-s-p100d-0-100-0-test/ [motortrend.com]
If you like high-g amusement park rides, this could be a lot of fun. Just make sure to fasten your seat belts and plant your head firmly against the headrest before acceleration starts.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday February 24 2020, @01:30AM (2 children)
I wanna a ride with a view!
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday February 24 2020, @02:03AM (1 child)
They'll put blackjack and hookers** on those rides. Still not interested?
---
Terms and conditions:
You'll need to finish in 30 seconds. You think you can manage?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday February 24 2020, @06:27AM
No, I like to do everything outside
Oh give me land, lots of land, and the starry skies above
Don't fence me in
Let me ride through the wide open country that I love
Don't fence me in [youtu.be]
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Informative) by dltaylor on Monday February 24 2020, @04:39AM
From near the ocean in Orange County, I have done day trips to Las Vegas for business and entertainment, using either a car or a motorcycle. It's really not that hard. Only thing missing is expanding I-15 between Barstow and the Nevada state line to a MINIMUM of three lanes each way (this is a heavily traveled truck corridor and trucks passing trucks in hilly/mountainous terrain really impacts the flow). The new(-ish) inspection station between Baker and the state line has really reduced the pain compared to the old one between Baker and Yermo.
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Monday February 24 2020, @05:15PM (1 child)
So the cars they will be using can go 155MPH on a test track. How fast will they really be going in this tunnel?
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday February 25 2020, @11:41AM
They may have a velocity enumerated by a positive integer and a unit of measurement.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]