The Las Vegas Convention Center continues to expand, including the underground transportation system provided by the Boring Company. A second tunnel is currently being drilled as part of the Convention Center Loop. Excavation on the second of the two-tunnel systems began on, March 13.
The tunnel system is designed to transport congress participants from one end of the Convention Center to the other at a distance of 0.85 miles. Most impressive is that in just 1 hour, in the underground transport system, with the help of Tesla vehicles, up to 4,400 people can be transported. The duration of the trip will be about 1 minute.
The Tesla/SpaceX/Boring Co. CEO Elon Musk hopes the tunnel will be completed by the end of 2020, but it will officially debut in early 2021.
In brighter news, the Las Vegas Convention Center expansion has hit two new milestones, including start of a second tunnel for @ElonMusk's underground transportation system. https://t.co/U8M4hweakC pic.twitter.com/zisE9GcF4D
— Vital Vegas (@VitalVegas) March 27, 2020
Boring’s first tunnel project should consist of a Loop system with two adjacent tunnels, that will connect the New Exhibit Hall building to the South and North/Central Hall.
On February 14, the company celebrated a digging breakthrough to the end of its first tunnel.
Breakthrough! https://t.co/vJ7Jmz2nNb
— The Boring Company (@boringcompany) February 14, 2020
The Loop transportation system will use autonomous electric vehicles, also known as AEV. These vehicles are composed of a modified Tesla Model 3 chassis to transport up to 16 passengers with both sitting and standing room.
Typical walk time between those two locations can take up to 15 minutes. “To walk from one end of our campus to the other is going to be about a mile and a half,” LVCVA President and CEO Steve Hill said, “That's just too long for some, and a lot of people just don't want to do it.”
Source: news3lv.com
The transportation system will include 3 passenger stations where people can hitch a ride, all connecting the convention center’s 3.2 million square-foot space with the West Hall that is currently under construction.
Musk aspires eventually to build such a system linking Washington and New York along the busy US Northeast corridor; he has also proposed projects for Chicago and Los Angeles. The Boring Co. last year showed reporters a new test tunnel in California, but Las Vegas is Boring’s first paying customer.
Source: news3lv.com
Musk hopes that Boring's moving people technology will help revolutionize urban transport in an even more crowded world. He says the idea came to his mind as he sat in his car with growing frustration, stuck in a traffic jam south of Los Angeles.
He envisions thousands of autonomous electric vehicles eventually moving millions of people underground at speeds up to 155 mph - far higher than the moderate 35 mph speeds planned for the short Las Vegas tunnels.
Featured image: news3lv.com
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Eva Fox
Eva Fox joined Tesmanian in 2019 to cover breaking news as an automotive journalist. The main topics that she covers are clean energy and electric vehicles. As a journalist, Eva is specialized in Tesla and topics related to the work and development of the company.
