Elon Musk’s Boring Company shows up again with the Vegas Tunnel, and it looks lame

When Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk first came up with his idea for tunnels under traffic, it sounded really incredible. The Boring Company would create an amazing high-speed system to circumvent ground-level congestion. Over the years, it has been a slow process, but a small loop will soon be presented at the Las Vegas Convention Center, hoping the small project can yield big things. Unfortunately, this seems so disappointing at first.

The Boring Company has invited local media to the Vegas loop to view progress as of this week tweets by Mick Akers, a local reporter for the Review Journal. The tunnel remains the most impressive thing of the project, with both tunnels completely excavated this past May. However, the rest of the process seems to amount to a ride in a Model 3. The company did tell media that the system would ‘transport 4400 people per hour in its fleet of 62 vehicles’. Eventually, the system could extends to the Las Vegas Strip.

According to the reaction of the local event, the media was able to drive a ride in Tesla’s electric sedan that crawled through the tunnels at 35 km / h. This is far from the promised speeds of 150 km / h, which is supposed to turn the typical 15-minute walk into a two-minute ride. Model 3 sedans use ‘tracking wheels’ to keep the cars in the specific lane of the tunnel, so no, the car does not drive itself. According to Akers’ information, there will be drivers. The wheels are more like deployable rollers. No word on the promised 12-seater trailer Musk said would also carry more passengers. The Boring Company also did not share any new information on what the loading and unloading procedures look like there. Musk has released a version of what a station might look like when everything is finished, with a group of Model 3 EVs ready to move people to another side of the conference center.

Hopefully the Boring Company stays deep in a testing phase and the cooler, more hyped elements will come soon. The company did not immediately return a request for comment. Finally when we heard it, the tunnels had to open for CES 2021, but organizers said the tunnels would not open if the coronavirus pandemic canceled the technological opportunity. Well, it was not exactly, but it became a virtual presentation. Either way, an underground ride in a Model 3 is not what the Boring Company promised.