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Boring Company to build car elevators connecting garages to tunnels

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6 years ago

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A Southern California city gave the go-ahead this week to Elon Musk’s tunnel-digging venture, The Boring Company, to build an underground car elevator.

Yes, a car elevator that would take your vehicle from your garage on street level to a below-ground chamber that connects to the Boring Company’s growing tunnel network.

Musk is deep in testing what he says will one day be an underground high-speed transportation system and the latest development is testing direct access from people’s homes to the 100 mph-plus electric pod system in tunnels below. 

A 2-mile test tunnel in Hawthorne, California (just south of the Los Angeles International Airport) is almost complete, so this appears to be part of the next phase. The Boring Company, or TBC, headed back to the Hawthorne City Council Tuesday and got full approval to build a garage-connector test shaft.

From documents submitted to council members and from a presentation at the meeting we can get a sense of what Musk is envisioning: cars descend 45 feet down via an electric elevator, which then hooks up with Loop, the name for the TBC’s transit system.

A proposed test elevator to connect cars to The Boring Company's tunnel network.

A proposed test elevator to connect cars to The Boring Company’s tunnel network.

Image: the boring company/hawthorne city council

At the meeting, the Boring Company explained it had acquired a Hawthorne home to test the elevator system. The test site will be for research and development, and not for public use.

The test elevator is a way to show the Boring Company’s Loop high-speed underground public transit plan connecting stations (the base of the elevators) to the tunnel network on electric skates, or pods. It’s not entirely clear what happens to your personal vehicle in this scenario, but during testing the cars will travel underground and up the shaft to an enclosed garage.

The Mercury News went into more detail as to what the city council approved TBC to build in what looks like an unassuming, palm-tree-lined Los Angeles area neighborhood in the Los Angeles area.

A rendering of an electric skate, or pod, that will carry passengers at high speeds through the Loop tunnels.

A rendering of an electric skate, or pod, that will carry passengers at high speeds through the Loop tunnels.

Image: the boring company/hawthorne city council

It all sounds and looks like a complicated way for commuters to avoid any car traffic, which Musk — who also builds cars — despises.

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