Elon Musk, founder of tunneling enterprise Boring Company, said in a tweet on Saturday, Dec. 28 that a commercial tunnel in Las Vegas would "hopefully" be fully operational in 2020, seeking to revolutionize transportation by sending passengers packed into pods through an intercity system of giant, underground vacuum tubes known as a hyperloop.
"Boring Co is completing its first commercial tunnel in Vegas, going from Convention Center to Strip, then will work on other projects," Musk tweeted late on Friday, in reply to a user's question about the company's tunnels. Musk, who also leads electric-car maker Tesla Inc and rocket company SpaceX, has been an avid explorer of revolutionizing hyperloop transportation system.
The company has completed its project Test Tunnel, located in Hawthorne, California, and other ongoing projects include the Chicago Express Loop and the East Coast Loop from Washington D.C. to Baltimore.
In April the U.S. Transportation Department started review of a Washington, D.C.- Baltimore tunnel, the first step in a governmental review of the project from Boring Co. In July, Boring Co raised about $117 million in a round of funding from 20 unnamed investors.
Virgin Hyperloop One: Travel like a lightning
Virgin Hyperloop One, the project based on futuristic high-speed travel was developed outside of Las Vegas, where the magnetically levitating pod traveled at a speed 240 mph (387 km/h) through a nearly airless tube was built. The Company is aiming to reach a speed goal of 670 mph (1000 km/hr) in its final take off next year.
The project Virgin Hyperloop One aims to transport people to distant locations in a very short period of time and it has reportedly formulated four proposed routes in the US, and two each in the United Kingdom and India. If this project takes off, it will surely redefine the traveling experience of people all across the world, and traveling by air may also face a setback.
Hyperloop One: Elon Musk's brainchild
It was in 2013 that Tesla's Elon Musk first proposed the idea of Hyperloop system which connects distant cities in a quick time. Even though he released all his plans for free, he is no way associated with Hyperloop One. Virgin joined Hyperloop One on last October, and as a result, Richard Branson was named as non-executive chairman.
Rob Lloyd, the CEO of Virgin Hyperloop One said that most of the world leaders are very much willing to embrace hyperloop to address critical infrastructure challenges.
(With inputs from agencies)
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