The Boring Company (TBC)

The Boring Company is a civil engineering company founded by Elon Musk. The company’s stated goal is to create high-speed underground transportation systems. Musk initially claimed that these systems would utilize innovative pods to transport passengers hundreds of miles between major population centers. He said the systems would use high-speed pods and carry passengers at high speeds, but completed tunnels instead moved modified electric vehicles at up to 40 miles per hour (64 kilometers per hour).

Background

Musk was born in 1971 in South Africa but immigrated to North America in 1988. He attended Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada. He transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 1997 with degrees in physics and economics. Musk had already founded his first company, Zip2, which he sold in 1999 for $307 million. He then founded X.com, which would later become PayPal. He sold the online money-transfer company to eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion. Musk founded Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) in 2002 to manufacture and design rocket technology. This was intended to accelerate the progress of space travel, which he saw as needed for human survival.

In 2004, Musk became a major funder of the electric car company Tesla Motors. The company, later renamed Tesla, introduced its first vehicle in 2006. Tesla’s offerings were considered sporty, powerful, and fun for consumers to drive.

Musk first announced his intention to create The Boring Company in December 2016. The entrepreneur claimed on his Twitter (renamed X by Musk in his 2022 purchase of the platform) feed that he was stuck in rush hour traffic and was going to build a tunnel machine to improve his commute time. In January 2017, Musk announced that he had founded The Boring Company, headquartered in Pflugerville, Texas. The following month it got started by digging a test hole on SpaceX property. The company’s first excavation measured thirty feet wide, fifty feet long, and fifteen feet deep, and was dug over the course of a weekend.

The Boring Company was not intended to create simple tunnels. Musk aspired to develop a new type of transportation infrastructure, eliminating much of the daily traffic present in large cities and improving travel across the United States. Initially, Musk stated that the company’s first major project would be the creation of a transportation tunnel from Los Angeles International Airport to Culver City several miles away. People would drive their cars onto platforms he called skates that would shoot through the tunnels at up to 150 miles per hour. However, this project failed to come to fruition. Musk later announced that The Boring Company would be involved in the creation of a hyperloop, a transportation system involving a sealed tube conceived by physicist Robert Goddard in 1904. The Boring hyperloop would run from Washington, DC, to New York City, he said. He talked about a larger project that would whisk passengers between the capital and New York City in less than thirty minutes.

Overview

In December 2017, Musk utilized his substantial social media following to generate funds and attention for The Boring Company. Musk posted that if the company sold fifty thousand Boring Company branded hats at $20 each, Musk would ensure that The Boring Company produced and sold a recreational flamethrower. He announced that the goal had been met on Christmas Eve that same year. When Musk learned that objects labeled flamethrower would not be delivered by some services due to regulations, he renamed the product Not a Flamethrower. The Boring Company sold twenty thousand units, earning more than $2 million and securing significant media attention.

The Boring Company announced plans for multiple tunnel projects. Some have been completed, although on a smaller scale or at a much-reduced transportation speed than initially proposed. Toward this end Musk has announced new technology and promoted his company through projects such as a competition to build tunnel-boring machines. The company’s work initially used Godot, its first tunnel-boring machine. The Boring Company produced its second drilling machine, Line-Storm, in 2019. This custom-designed machine, which he called a variation of a standard tunnel borer, was later followed by Prufrock. This third-generation tunnel-boring machine was wholly designed by the company. Musk claimed it would be ten to fifteen times faster than ordinary boring machines. The company offered several types of tunnels, including those to carry utility lines.

The company completed a research and development tunnel in December 2018 in Hawthorne, California. Initially, the project was intended to transport passengers using specialized pods similar to those proposed for its Chicago project. However, when the final product was unveiled, instead of pods the tunnels moved people using specially modified Tesla Model X vehicles. These were equipped with tracking wheels that stopped them from deviating from a set path. While initially the company announced the project would transport passengers at speeds of up to 150 miles per hour, the vehicles utilized in the Hawthorne tunnel’s demonstration traveled at just 40 miles per hours. The completed tunnel was roughly 1.14 miles long at a construction cost of roughly $10 million.

The Boring Company completed its first operational project in 2021. The Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC) Loop connects the LVCC New Exhibit Hall to the original LVCC. It stretches for roughly 1.7 miles and is designed to transport more than four thousand event attendees per hour. Like the Hawthorne tunnel, the LVCC loop utilizes passenger vehicles traveling at up to 40 miles per hour. Although the Teslas are equipped to be self-driving, they used human drivers when the project opened. It includes two tunnels, two turnarounds above ground, and an underground terminal. The company has said that the system, which cost $52.5 million and was built over about eighteen months, will be expanded to take passengers to various parts of the city and the airport and someday to California.

In 2018, Chicago, Illinois, chose The Boring Company to build a high-speed transportation network from downtown to O’Hare International Airport. According to The Boring Company’s proposal, the transportation system would utilize a closed loop and transport up to sixteen passengers and their luggage within specialized pods. These pods would travel between 125 and 150 miles per hour, departing every thirty seconds, transporting riders between those locations in just twelve minutes. However, after the mayor of the city expressed concern regarding the project in 2019, plans halted and mention of the project went quiet. Plans for the Washington, DC, Hyperloop One were cancelled as well after the company announced in December 2023 that operations would cease. The Boring Company continues to propose plans throughout the country and worldwide, though, and has specifically discussed potential projects in cities in Florida and Texas.

Bibliography

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Hetzner, Christiaan. “After Years of Failure, Elon Musk’s Boring Company Claims It Will Finally Test a Full-Scale Hyperloop This Year.” Fortune, 25 Apr. 2022, fortune.com/2022/04/25/elon-musk-boring-company-hyperloop-2/. Accessed 26 Dec. 2024.

Karlin, Susan. “Elon Musk’s ‘Teslas in Tunnels’ Are a $52 Million Bet on the Future of Transit.” Fast Company, 9 June 2021, www.fastcompany.com/90644133/elon-musk-boring-company-vegas-teslas-in-tunnels-opening. Accessed 26 Dec. 2024.

Kay, Grace. “The Boring Company Scrubbed Mention of LA and DC Tunnels from Its Website.” Business Insider, 16 Apr. 2021, www.businessinsider.com/boring-company-scrubbed-la-and-dc-tunnels-from-site-2021-4. Accessed 26 Dec. 2024.

Korosec, Kirsten. “Musk’s Boring Company to Begin ‘Full-Scale’ Hyperloop Testing This Year.” TechCrunch, 25 Apr. 2022, techcrunch.com/2022/04/25/musks-boring-company-to-begin-full-scale-hyperloop-testing-this-year/. Accessed 26 Dec. 2024.

“Las Vegas Convention Center Loop.” Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, 2022, www.lvcva.com/lvcc-loop/. Accessed 26 Dec. 2024.

Petrova, Magdalena. “Why Elon Musk’s Boring Company Is Finding That Traffic Is Tough to Fix.” CNBC, 20 July 2021, www.cnbc.com/2021/07/20/why-elon-musks-boring-company-is-finding-that-traffic-is-tough-to-fix.html. Accessed 26 Dec. 2024.

“Report: Elon Musk’s The Boring Company Lands Largest Investment Deal in Austin History.” KVUE, 22 Apr. 2022, www.kvue.com/article/money/economy/boomtown-2040/report-elon-musk-boring-company-largest-investment-ideal-austin-history/269-57cb91da-630e-4bb5-8629-6a0214365251. Accessed 26 Dec. 2024.

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