In a nutshell, the idea behind The Boring Company is that you can cover longer distances in a fraction of the time if you go underground. A new Loop project is now under discussion with the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority for the greater Los Angeles region.
This new Loop project would link Rancho Cucamonga to the Ontario International Airport. It would consist of a 2.8-mile (4.5 km) long tunnel system at about 35 feet (10.6 meters) deep, allowing electric vehicles (Teslas, to be more exact) to travel at speeds of up to 127 mph (204 kph) and cover the entire distances in anything between 90 seconds and two minutes tops.
The San Bernardino County Transportation Authority’s Board of Directors has voted to drop every other study and focus on whether this project could be implemented, Mercury News reports. This in itself is excellent news, but even better is the possible leak of an even more interesting tidbit: Tesla is finally working on the “high passenger-density urban transport” vehicle Elon Musk was talking about back in 2016.
Asked to confirm whether the SBCTA is indeed considering the proposal from The Boring Company, San Bernardino County Supervisor Curt Hagman possibly accidentally let it slip that Tesla is also working on an electric passenger van.
“Originally, the proposal called for specially designed Tesla cars,” the publication reports. “But Hagman said the company is working with Tesla to develop electric vans that can seat up to 12 people and their luggage, enlarging the capacity to 1,200 people per day, or 10 million-plus per year.”
Unfortunately, Hagman did not offer more details on the car. However, he did point out the many benefits of the new Loop project, from the shorter time it would take to build it to the considerably smaller costs. In fact, Hagman believes they could get it done with the $40 million they already have for a Gold Line extension, with only some outside funding needed.
For comparison, Hagman says the Loop would cost an estimated $60 million over three years, while the railway extension could jump to $1.5 billion and would need at least 10 years to be build.
The Boring Company Loop system pic.twitter.com/xVpDHzZKXB
— The Boring Company (@boringcompany) December 19, 2018
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