Elon Musk's tunneling venture, The Boring Company (TBC), has reportedly begun pitching a concept for tunnels 21 feet in diameter, which would allow freight containers to be transported through them. The proposed width is almost twice that of TBC's current 12-foot tunnels. So far, TBC’s tunnel projects have been focused solely on moving personal vehicles across cities.
TBC was founded by Musk in 2016 to create low-cost tunnels that could alleviate traffic on clogged roads. An example of TBC’s current tunnel projects is the 1.7-mile-long underground loop beneath the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC), which cost $52 million. The LVCC loop has been panned by critics for its cost, impracticality, and disappointing scale, but TBC argues that it "reduces a 45-minute cross-campus walk time to approximately two minutes."
According to a pitch obtained by Bloomberg, expanding the diameter of TBC’s tunnels would allow two shipping containers to be transported side-by-side while begin transported on “battery-powered freight carriers.” The report also notes that TBC’s fixed width of 21 feet will serve to keep costs down because the company will not have to alter equipment to fit custom tunnel widths. According to Bloomberg, TBC has pitched the wider tunnel system to San Bernardino County as part of the Inland Port project but it is still an early concept.
The promise of TBC's underground tunnels has appealed to local governments because the cost of building them is considerably cheaper than many alternatives. TBC keeps costs down by having its boring machines tunnel from the surface and tunnel without the need for rails once they have been launched. The completed tunnels can also use semi-autonomous cars from Tesla — another of Musk's companies — to transport passengers rather than building a rail subway system, where costs per mile can reach hundreds of millions.
Of course, the viability of projects like the LVCC loop depends on their ability to transport passengers at a similar rate to trains and subways. According to a report from TechCrunch, this isn't possible for TBC to do at its current scale. TBC sold the LVCC loop with the promise that it would one day be able to move 4,400 passengers per hour, but reaching that goal would reportedly require TBC to abandon fire safety regulations. According to the report, the LVCC loop will only be able to transport 1,200 people per hour at max. Shifting its focus to transporting freight underground might be the best option for TBC and its clients, especially if the company can develop larger autonomous transportation vehicles that can compete with trains in terms of capacity.
Source: Bloomberg, TechCrunch, TBC
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