Featured Image Source: The Boring Company

Elon Musk, the CEO at Tesla and SpaceX, founded The Boring Company “as a joke” with the goal “to solve the problem of soul-destroying traffic” by building an underground network of high-speed transportation tunnels, referred to as Loop. “I started The Boring Company as a joke, but now it’s digging real tunnels!” he said on July 18. Musk envisions a future where electric vehicles are transported into underground networks of high-speed routes leading directly to destinations without stops.

One of The Boring Company's tunnel projects, is actively under construction in Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC). The $52.5 million LVCC project, will be comprised of a Loop system with two 1-mile long tunnels adjacent to each other, that will connect the New Exhibit Hall [West Hall] building to the South and North/Central Hall. On May 14, The Boring Company finished excavating both tunnels that will make-up the Loop transportation system. “Loop is an express public transportation system that resembles an underground highway more than a subway system. Passengers arrive directly at their final destination without stopping,” the company states, “To put it another way, if a subway line had 100 stops, a train would typically stop at each station, so the trip between Stop 1 and Stop 100 would be long. In contrast, Loop passengers travel directly to their destination […] without stopping at the intermediate stations.”

Vegas Loop 12:41 AM Rumblings pic.twitter.com/aEFbkwD8WI

— The Boring Company (@boringcompany) May 14, 2020

This week, The Boring Company updated its website to showcase new renders which suggest the Las Vegas Convention Center Loop system will use autonomous Tesla cars to transport passengers underground. “Loop is an all-electric, zero-emissions, high-speed underground public transportation system in which passengers are transported via compatible Autonomous Electric Vehicles (AEVs) at up to 150 miles per hour through Main Artery Tunnels between stations. AEVs are Tesla vehicles (Model S, 3, and X) that operate autonomously within the Loop system,” the company states on its website.

The photo featured above, is a digital render of a ‘Subsurface Station’, in the background it says ‘West Hall’ and ‘South Hall’, which is a reference to the names of the Las Vegas center buildings that will be connected via the two one-mile tunnels, and the city’s slogan is printed on a wall - ‘What Happens Here, Only Happens Here.’

Typical walk time between LVCC West Hall and South Hall can take up to 15 minutes. The same trip across LVCC's 200-acre campus on board the underground Loop vehicles would take approximately 1 minute. According to city officials, the tunnel will be capable of transporting around 4,400 people per hour. “Loop ridership is a function of the number, size, and spacing of stations. Generally, high-volume Loop systems target 10,000 people/hour,” the company’s website details, “If a system requires greater ridership, additional tunnels can be constructed.  If a system requires much lower ridership, the tunnel system remains the same, and smaller, less expensive stations are constructed.”

The Boring Company also published a render of a ‘Surface Station’ and an ‘Open-Air Station,’ pictured below. Las Vegas City officials said the LVCC transportation system will include three connected passenger stations where people can hitch a ride. The stations are currently under construction. The project is expected to be completed by January 2021. It will be the first time the company tests out their high-speed Loop technology concept in the real world.