Boring Company To Build Tesla Tunnels Under Nashville (techcrunch.com)
- Reference: 0178516688
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/07/30/2015220/boring-company-to-build-tesla-tunnels-under-nashville
- Source link: https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/29/elon-musks-boring-company-to-build-tesla-tunnels-under-nashville/
> The project will be privately funded by The Boring Company "and its private partners," according to the Governor's press release, though those partners are not named. The Boring Company and local officials will now begin a "public process to evaluate potential routes, engage community stakeholders, and finalize plans for the project's initial 10-mile phase." Construction won't begin until the project clears the approvals process. But the governor's office said the first segment of the loop could be operational as "early as fall of 2026."
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/29/elon-musks-boring-company-to-build-tesla-tunnels-under-nashville/
[2] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/23/08/03/2032234/the-boring-company-will-dig-a-68-mile-tunnel-network-under-las-vegas
Just like crypto (Score:2)
This is a "solution" looking for a problem. What a stupid, wasteful, destructive mess.
[1]https://humantransit.org/2025/... [humantransit.org]
[1] https://humantransit.org/2025/01/las-vegas-a-ride-on-elons-vegas-loop.html
Uh, OK. (Score:2)
claims to have given 3 million rides
And they've made more profit by selling "flamethrowers."
Re: (Score:3)
That's a pretty pathetic number. To put it in comparison it's less than the daily subway ridership in NYC
Has Boring Co really done anything? (Score:2)
Their goal was to be a price disruptor on cost-per-mile underground tunneling but to me landing and reusing a spacecraft was an obvious way to disrupt the launch industry and at least to me with regards to tunneling there was no at least obvious disruptor tech or method or they'd discover some glaring inefficiency the rest of the industry was missing but considering the challenges in tunneling are many and unavoidable.
Maybe it's been skunkworks and we'll see it now? I'm ready to be wrong on this.
It shut down high speed rail (Score:2)
The two major investors were a guy that ran a car company and a guy that ran an airline. The only purpose of the company was to distract from High-Speed rail projects and shut them down. It worked.
So now your options are to drive across country or to take a plane. And if you're just going City to City you could have had high speed rail which would have been substantially cheaper and faster than both.
Re: (Score:1)
Go take your pills; high speed rail killed high speed rail. The Boring company had absolutely no part in that.
The California track was always a federal money suck that never had a chance in hell. None of the money that has gone into it was spent on putting actual track down so every town that wanted to be connected to it had to pay 10's of millions for that privilege while all of the actual money disappeared into the California cesspool. Of course all the of the towns said "fuck that"; end of story.
Re: (Score:2)
> Go take your pills; high speed rail killed high speed rail. The Boring company had absolutely no part in that.
. What about all those other countries with high speed rail? Leon wasn't involved with them and they run just fine.
> connected to it had to pay 10's of millions for that privileges
Source. I haven't heard about any free Saudi jets running around Cali.
Re: (Score:1)
1.) Strawman much? I was talking about the debacle called the California High Speed Rail Project not a well run system in another country.
2.) Try google I'm not paid to do your thinking for you. It was well covered by the AP News and Reuters.
Re: (Score:2)
But the point is there’s nothing inherent in HSR that means it *had* to fail in California (or the UK). It is about the structural and governance barriers that exist in both countries, which are wildly different from other countries.
This article captures some of the issues in the UK, much of which applies to the US too:
[1]https://www.britainremade.co.u... [britainremade.co.uk]
[1] https://www.britainremade.co.uk/why_high_speed_rail_projects_like_hs2_cost_10_times_more_in_britain_than_france
Re: (Score:2)
There are some possible disruptive technologies in tunneling. Microwave drilling looks like it might actually work and be a lot cheaper than conventional methods. That might be adaptable to tunneling. The Boring Company has built their own machines and does seem to be refining tunnel boring, although they're not doing anything super unconventional.
Re: (Score:2)
I overall agree with you - price disruption in tunneling would have so many benefits.
But at this point, I'm thinking Elon's businesses such as SpaceX is a mix of two factors: Elon not being full crazy yet, and other people successfully managing Elon's excesses.
Also, overall, techbros are like moths to the flame when it comes to reinventing mass transit poorly.
Re: (Score:2)
I’m old enough to remember when Segways were going to disrupt everything. Micromobility is now expanding rapidly, but none of that is Segways.
Re: (Score:2)
They want to DESTROY mass transit ... they hate the idea of sharing space with an unvetted stranger.
Why so secretive? (Score:3)
Representative Justin Jones, the state representative whose district includes Nashville and where this "loop" will be located, was denied entry because [1]he wasn't on "the list" [wkrn.com].
Makes one wonder how much more socialist payments Musk will take the taxpayers for.
[1] https://www.wkrn.com/news/local-news/nashville/rep-justin-jones-asked-to-leave-airport-event-at-request-of-gov-lees-office-per-bna-officials/
Re: (Score:2)
Can't have those types getting too uppity, after all. If you let them into public events, next thing you know they'll want to eat in the same restaurants as us or even ride in the front of the bus!
Re: (Score:2)
Where are all the CA or MA reps with free jets or bribes from network tv?
Monorail! (Score:2)
Yes, a monorail!
Did somebody say high speed rail? (Score:2)
Because that's the only reason this scam of a company exists. Then again government in America these days is so ludicrously corrupt especially in red States that this might just be a bribe to Musk.
With crypto I bet you could easily give millions of dollars to a politician with it being basically untraceable. Yeah I know Bitcoin and all that is traceable but it's not hard to use any one of the many tumblers out there.
There's a reason why cryptocurrency is so popular with money launderers. It beats th
Re: (Score:2)
What is wrong with you? 6 of your last 12 posts are bitching about rsilvergun. You are mentally ill. you need help.
Re: (Score:2)
Recently, wasn't there a politician who went to prison for corruption or bribery and had a bunch of gold bars in his house? What was his excuse? Im afraid The dollar will collapse or something fucking stupid?
Why Nashville? (Score:2)
Seems like an odd choice.
Re: (Score:2)
Center of the U.S?? By what measure?
Certainly not geographically. Not even close.
Financially? No
Culturally? No
Population wise? I dunno, maybe. I'd have to look that one up.
I don't see how Nashville is the center of anything, other than country music and, maybe, kinda sorta, Tennessee.
Re: (Score:2)
If they think that I'd want to "drive" cross counter cooped up in an isolation pod underground with no windows, they have another thing coming. Guess I'll move to Europe where conventional trains, running aboveground, with proper windows, are still a thing.
Most cities really need this (Score:1)
Having a wimpy direct path that just goes from Airport - Downtown - Convention center is perfect for a huge number of cities.
So many places it can be really rough to get from the airport to the downtown area any time around rush hour (which in a lot of cities is around a 3-4 hour window).
Some places with rail kind of have this - like the train that goes from Midway into Chicago. But even THAT has a lot of stops and is not great for travelers, even if it's nice for residents.
I also have to say that a system
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes it’s called a subway and they move more people at greater speeds.
Re: (Score:1)
> Yes it’s called a subway
Yeah, but are they electric ? Wait, never mind.
Re: (Score:2)
Many, many, many places don't have a subway.
Re: (Score:2)
Even more places don't have an imaginary tunnel dug by a ketamine junkie. Like, all places that exist.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, as I understand it, Musk likes a challenge.
Re: (Score:2)
And Musk is trying to address that issue. I don't see what the problem is.
Re: (Score:2)
His solution is essentially a more expensive way of adding another lane to the highway. Which is proven to not actually reduce congestion.
Re: (Score:2)
But his solution isn't involving any public money. If he wants to piss away this own money and the money of his investors, why should we care?
Re: (Score:2)
> But his solution isn't involving any public money.
The whole musk business empire is built on public money. Without public money musk would have been long forgotten.
Re: (Score:2)
Spending public money on infrastructure is actually a good thing.
Re: (Score:2)
> Yes it’s called a subway and they move more people at greater speeds.
Most cities do not have passenger rail to their airports.
Even those that do often require time-consuming transfers.
The NYC subway has an average speed of 28 kph. That isn't faster than a Tesla.
Most importantly, the Boring Company's raison d'etre is that it builds tunnels at far lower cost than conventional methods.
What if there isn't enough passengers? (Score:2)
I think that what might be missed here is that one has to ask whether or not there'd be enough passenger traffic to justify 200 passengers per car @4-5 cars, IE ~1000 people. Just like how we don't need 4 lane highways everywhere, most are actually 2 lane, but some are 6-8 lane. That said, I think that the people capacity would be lower because subways typically don't assume luggage. While airlines charging for luggage has dropped the amount people carry substantially, many still bring at least one bag t
Re: (Score:2)
It doesn't really make sense to compare the cost of boring a tunnel to the type of rolling stock.
Even with a cheaper tunnel you could put trains inside it rather than cars. The current system has two tunnels and can move 4,400 people per hour, assuming you fill up each car. A subway can move 40,000 people per hour per tunnel.
Running the numbers, the Tesla tunnel has about the same capacity as a road.
Re: (Score:2)
Yep. And I’m 100% sure that the costs of the Tesla tunnel are a lot more than 10% of the costs of a subway, so the cost per passenger per hour is going to be higher, not lower. (Obvs the full costs needs to account for electricity, rolling stock capex and opex, etc, but the basics are crystal clear).
Also the OP is being trite, comparing the speed of a dedicated airport-link tunnel with the NYC subway. The former is designed as a shuttle service, so obviously can optimise for speed, and there’s l
That's capacity, but what about demand? (Score:2)
However, what if you don't need to move 40k people/hour? What if the figure is closer to 2k?
In which case, even if the subway is "only" 5 times the cost, it would still end up substantially more expensive per passenger than the Tesla tunnel.
Still, there's quite a few ways to increase capacity of the tunnels after the fact. Switch to fully automated cars will allow 1 more passenger per car, increasing capacity. Using automation to shorten the following distance and increasing speed.
Right now, using more
Re: (Score:2)
Plus Tesla never got its self driving cars to work reliably, even in the highly controlled environment of a purpose built tunnel, so they need a lot of drivers to move 4k people an hour.
Re: (Score:2)
> Most importantly, the Boring Company's raison d'etre is that it builds tunnels at far lower cost than conventional methods.
So, how many tunnels and of what length has The Boring Company produced since it was incorporated?
Re: (Score:2)
Transfers are good. They force lazy American couch potatoes to walk and exercise, whether they like it or not. Cities should be built like living gyms. Also, trains are awesome, unlike cars.
it’s called a subway (Score:2)
I think that word has been Trademarked by the fast-food sandwich company
Re: (Score:2)
In big cities, it gets really complicated. Houston, for example, has not just one downtown, but at last five major business districts with clusters of high-rise buildings. Connecting all of these centers is difficult, even for the Boring Company.
Re: (Score:2)
“Even”
It’s *especially* difficult for the Boring Company, because it’s a private organisation “run” by a ket-addled pillock
Re: (Score:2)
Typical asozial techy ... I like being around other people. I like random conversations with strangers. That's part of the FUN of riding public transit.
Also, there are other ways of solving homelessness, like creating a society with lower levels of inequality and a functional mental health system. But, you know, Dumbericant austerity.