Las Vegas ordered an underground tunnel from Ilona Mask from Boring Company

Since then, as the CEO of SpaceX andTesla Ilon Musk joked on Twitter about the Boring Company (“boring / drilling company”), two and a half years passed. But now this young technology company exists and is engaged in laying tunnels, has already dug one (test) hole in the parking lot of SpaceX suburban headquarters in Los Angeles; participated in at least one loud press conference with the mayor of Chicago; promised the Dodgers fans that it would be easier for them to get to their seats; sued two neighbors in Los Angeles (who did not want tunnels near the house; and completed at least two official environmental assessments for projects in Maryland and Los Angeles.

But never at Boring Companypaying customer. Until now. On Wednesday evening, the board of directors of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority voted to give the Boring Company a $ 48,675,000 contract to build the 1,328-meter three-station version of the Loop public transportation system, which the company is developing within the expanded, reconstructed conference center. in Las Vegas, which is now being actively built.

Boring Company Receives First Order from Las Vegas

The Loop system ("Loop") consists of 8-16-seaterautonomous electric vehicles with battery power, designed to transport people from the station to the station at a speed of up to 250 km / h. The system in Las Vegas will have to carry at least 4,400 passengers per hour between the exhibition center and the southern halls - about 20 minutes walk.

Boring Company also promised to build a systemescalators or elevators for each of the three stations, pedestrian entrances and exits, lighting of tunnels, power supply and video surveillance systems, control room and cellular telephony, Wi-Fi, intercom and ventilation systems The convention center hopes to coincide with the opening of the Loop at the CES 2021 Consumer Electronics Show.

Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman was the only oneBoard member, who voted against the agreement with the Boring Company. During the bidding process, Goodman asked other members of the board of directors to consider a more expensive offer from another company - Doppelmayr. “Doppelmayr exists for 125 years,” Goodman wrote in a letter. “They already have projects that are working successfully. Boring is only 3 years old and she hasn’t yet shown anything in a complete form. ”

Tunnel design specialists have suppliedquestioned the ambitious plans of the Boring Company. Musk, who made the fight with traffic jams on the roads of one of his missions, wants to speed up the drilling of tunnels 10 times and reduce costs by 15, partly due to the reduction of the diameter of tunnels and automation of parts of the boring process. But critics do not believe that the company will be able to create their projects as cheap as it promises. She has not yet shown a specially built drilling machine for the tunnels, although Musk claimed that she would start assembling it this year. And in December, when Boring opened its 1.6-kilometer-long Loop prototype in a test tunnel in Los Angeles, the riders said the ride was bumpy and had a top speed of only 90 km / h.

In addition, Musk is a big fan of breaking deadlines. Do you think he will rip them off this time? Make your prediction in our chat in Telegram.