LAS VEGAS, Nev. — The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority has approved a $48.7 million contract with Elon Musk’s Boring Co. to build an underground transit system for the Las Vegas Convention Center.
The system, which will require less than a mile of tunneling, will be served by autonomous electric vehicles based on Tesla Model X chassis. It will include three underground stations. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports design and permitting will begin immediately, with construction expected to begin around Labor Day. Construction is expected to be completed by December 2020, when the convention center opens a new exhibit hall.
It will be the first system built by the Boring Co., which had previously proposed high-speed tunnel systems in Los Angeles and Chicago. Chicago had selected Boring to build a system [see “Chicago chooses Musk firm for high speed line to O’Hare airport,” Trains News Wire, June 15, 2018], but that plan now appears to be dead.
I agree with the comment below: this project has nothing to do with railroads. Same with Maglev. If an office building in Milwaukee installed a new bank of elevators would Trains News Wire cover it ? I don’t think so.
The way I view it, Musk is the type of nutcase who’s crazy ideas have serious ability to change the world. Self landing orbital rocket boosters is insane, yet somehow SpaceX managed to pull it off while also managing to become the highest grossing space launch provider in the world right now. The only other company to pull off the self landing rocket trick is Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, and those are currently only suborbital launches with a much more limited business market than Musk’s Falcon 9 has.
If SpaceX isn’t enough to bolster his resume, may I point you to PayPal?
Now Tesla has had a much bumpier road of travel with its attempts to lower costs coming under much scruttiny, and so far this Boring Company has seemed more like a rich man’s pipe dream project than something currently economic. On top of that Musk’s online habits are an unending source of amusement for someone watching from the sidelines, but obviously erratic enough to spook investors and government contractors (but still its pretty comparable to some of the online antics I have seen from some high profile commentators in the model railroad hobby…).
So to sort of quote the last Godzilla “let them fight” is my attitude to Elon and his attempts to enter competitive public transportation. If he can prove his ideas as having merit and being lower cost than our traditional methods, let him try it and we will be the ones to reap the technological and lower cost benefits. If the ideas flop and fall hard on their face, then we can add them to the dustbin of “Historic Bad Tech Ideas” such as the Atmospheric Railway, the Nuclear Turbine locomotive, and the ACE 3000 steam locomotive.
Those who are discounting Mr. Musk as a complete and incompetent failure apparently are not familiar with Space X. You may want to look into their accomplishments before writing him off.
“It’s a solution in search of a problem.”
Mike Friedman, I could not say it better. Not everything Musk touches turns into gold.
Elon Musk is the Emperor with no clothes.
This is a completely ridiculous proposal to accomplish absolutely nothing.
It’s a solution in search of a problem.
Vegas is a great place to try something like this. If it works, great; if it fails it’s still an amusement park ride.
It is public money and the politician bureaucrat grafters want something new and shiny.
The subway…he invented the subway.
Dumb. Proven moving sidewalks and people mover designs with open production lines and venders would work just as well.
Says it’s an underground transit system but only one mile of tunneling. How can that be? Or are they going to build it like a strip mine and then cove it?
Re: why not go for something totally off the wall?
Exactly. And, what goes better together like “demented fakir” and Vegas?
Plus, the contract is only for $48 M’s + change. That was about the cost of 1 mile of California HSR – above ground – and he’s going to build an entire underground transit system for that.
I say that will be money WELL spent.
Would you buy a used car from Elon Musk? Or a new Tesla? The only person nuttier than Elon Musk is anyone who does business with this demented fakir.
Since no current and proven transit technology has been demonstarted economically feasible in Vegas, why not go for something totally off the wall?
What exactly does this have to do with railroads? I understand it’s transit related, but is this even a train, in theory?
Is Las Vegas going to provide Musk with his weed supply?
Why would anyone give a contract to someone who has proven to be incompetent at actual management instead of creating shiny visions? Not to mention a proven inability to meet his shiny promises.
this seems like a big gamble, and the house always wins! 🙂