The Boring Company’s Las Vegas Convention Center Loop was completed, and as with every other Elon Musk project, the initiative drew a barrage of criticism from skeptics, some of whom mocked and mocked the transportation tunnel system. But just like SpaceX critics who insisted that orbital rockets would never land on a drone in the middle of the ocean, or Tesla skeptics who insisted that the Model 3 was a lemon no one would buy, the critics of The Boring Company may very well be missing an important point.
The criticism surrounding the LVCC Loop is great, with publications such as CNET note that the system was ‘disappointing’ and ‘lame’ because of its ability to transport only 4400 people from a fleet of 62 Teslas. VICE described coverage of the LVCC loop as the “most embarrassing news grab in American transportation history. ” Technical publication Futurism argued that the LVCC loop is ‘incredibly inefficient’. Even dedicated EV blogs dismissed the project as ‘boring’.
And that’s just from some publications. A look at the reactions of social media shows that many users, including the usual group of Tesla and SpaceX skeptics, call the LVCC Loop because they are another example of why Elon Musk is a failure. This became especially noticeable after celebrity Kylie Jenner posted a short video of a trip through the Las Vegas tunnels. But amid the frothy mouths of anti-Elon Musk individuals and those who simply do not believe in the potential of The Boring Company, one important point is – the LVCC Loop, in its current state, is not the end of and the everyday tunnel work. ambitions.
One thing that critics of Boring Company usually forget is the fact that the tons of the LVCC Loop were built incredibly cheaply and quickly. It is now rarely discussed, but The Boring Company was one of the two companies shortlisted for the Las Vegas Convention Center transportation system. The other company was the Doppelmayr Garaventa Group in Austria, which proposed a traditional above-ground campus transit system that would cost an estimated $ 215 million. The LVCC Loop was completed for $ 52.5 million. It is also scalable, with the LVCC Loop easily expandable to the larger, more extensive Vegas Loop.
While the current iteration of the Las Vegas Convention Center Loop is a conservative version of Elon Musk’s ambitious tunnel concepts, the core of The Boring Company’s innovation is present in the project. This is because the goal of The Boring Company is ultimately to make tunneling faster and more efficient. In this regard, the startup was able to achieve its goals, and that is without using its flagship tunnel boring machine. According to previous reports, The Boring Company used Godot +, an upgraded version of its first TBM, to complete the LVCC Loop.
Kylie Jenner shows off The Boring Company Tunnel in Las Vegas 👀
🔥 @elonmusk pic.twitter.com/wwN0yc9zIx
– SAINT (@saint) 14 April 2021
The Boring Company is working hard to develop Prufrock, a next-generation, fully electric tunnel boring machine designed to dig 1 mile per week, or about six times faster than Godot +. Prufrock is also designed to start tunneling within 48 hours of arrival at the stage, making deployment very easy and fast. Machines like Prufrock, and the incredibly low cost of its tunnels, are The Boring Company’s real disruption.
It’s incredibly impressive considering that Godot + is not sloppy. While talking to the German publication Manager Magazine, Martin Herrenknecht, the founder of Herrenknecht AG, rejected The Boring Company, saying that Elon Musk’s TBMs can only drill 20 meters in one week. In a statement to Teslarati, a person familiar with the matter made it clear that Herrenknecht’s information was inaccurate, as Godot + could dig more than 40 meters in one day.
The most important factor to note in the midst of the intense criticism against the LVCC Loop is the fact that the system will certainly not remain as it is today. Yes, it only uses Teslas which is currently still driven by human drivers, but it will soon improve with the use of Autopilot. Yes, the system today has only 6200 people per hour with 62 Teslas, but the vehicles will soon be able to drive faster, and larger transport pods with 16 people per vehicle could improve the system’s capacity. It’s just a little hard to see these things, or even admit, if one was already under the idea that The Boring Company was fraudulent because Elon Musk.
The Boring Company starts first. The LVCC Loop can also be considered a proof of concept, and it will be extended to other areas in Las Vegas. Improvements to the LVCC Loop, such as the implementation of more Teslas and the use of Autopilot, can also be implemented quickly. Similar tunnels could also be built in Florida soon. And once Prufrock is deployed, and once other cheap tunnels are built at speeds never seen before, skeptics of The Boring Company could very well find themselves in the same boat as those who were absolutely certain that orbital rockets could not land. an autonomous axle, or that electric vehicles are simply not feasible.
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