The Boring Company, Elon Musk’s most unassumingly named tech venture, has presented a plan to build a 6.5 mile tunnel between Hawthorne (where SpaceX HQ is located) and West Los Angeles, undercutting Culver City in between to link the two. Boring Co. executives presented the plan to the Culver City city council on Monday night, trying to sell the local regulators on the idea of a tunnel system designed to beat traffic and ease surface congestions.
The Boring Company’s chief of operations Jehn Balajadia presented the plan to city government, explaining that Musk’s venture already has permission from Hawthorne city council for an easement for that side of the tunnel, and it’s also working with LA on an excavation permit, too, according to Wired. The pitch is that this tunnel would enable The Boring Co. to create networks of electric-powered sleds or ‘skates’ that could transport passenger pods, personal vehicles and cargo at high speed, autonomously, routing goods and people like network traffic.
While Musk’s venture hasn’t done much yet, beyond dig a few test tunnels and talk about the state of the technology of tunnel borers and how much it could be improved, it has sold a lot of hats – 50,000, to be exact, a figure which Musk himself touted when citing the company’s ability to make money from its branding even before attempting to commercialize its primary business. That was apparently something a speaker at the council meeting raised, too – but as a warning.
Said meeting attendee called the Boring Co. a “thinly capitalized company that has made money selling hats,” Bloomberg reports.