Ted 2017: Elon Musk’s vision for underground road system
Share this with Facebook
Share this with Twitter
Share this with Messenger
Share this with Messenger
Share this with
These are outward links and will open in a fresh window
Share this with Facebook
Share this with Messenger
Share this with Messenger
Share this with Twitter
Share this with Pinterest
Share this with WhatsApp
Share this with LinkedIn
These are outer links and will open in a fresh window
Close share panel
US entrepreneur Elon Musk has outlined his vision for a tunnel network under Los Angeles and shown how it might work.
Mr Musk also told the Ted (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference he planned fully autonomous journeys across the US by the end of the year.
He spoke about how he wished solar-powered roof tiles to be standard on “every home” within fifty years.
And he explained why he is committed to sending a rocket to Mars.
In a wide-ranging conversation with Ted curator Chris Anderson, the founder of Tesla and Space X said that he was inspired to consider a tunnel system to alleviate congestion because he found being stuck in traffic “soul-destroying”.
He demonstrated off a concept movie of how the multi-layered tunnel system might work.
Cars would stop on a trolley-like device and the ground would open up to carry them below. Cars would then drive off the platform and another would get on to be returned above ground.
He said that his vision was to have “no thresholds” to the amount of tunnels, but to find ways to cut the cost of boring and to speed up how quickly such tunnels could be created.
“We have a pet snail called Gary, and Gary is capable of moving fourteen times swifter than a tunnel boring machine – so the ambition is to strike Gary,” he said.
The rigid he set up to oversee the project – The Boring Company – took up less than 3% of his time, he said, and it was run by interns and part-timers.
“It is pottering along.”
Susan Beardslee, a senior analyst at ABI Research, said the project sounded like a “moonshot”.
“He has shown his capability to be a visionary, and I believe he can take tunnelling and apply the financial capital and technical expertise, but this is not a go-it-alone project.
“He is addressing the need to look at congestion – but it will have to be a public/private partnership,” she said.
“Musk is good at coming up with a very different way of looking at things, and this might work better somewhere where it can be purpose-built rather than retro-fitted.”
Mr Musk is infrequently out of the headlines these days – recently notching up another landmark for his Space X business when it launched a recycled rocket as well as kicking off a fresh hard – NeuraLink – that would aim to augment the human brain with computer technology.
His semi-autonomous Tesla car fleet has been under scrutiny since a fatal crash in May 2016, but Mr Musk displayed no signs of slowing down his ambitions for the rigid.
He promised a “fully autonomous” journey across the US “by the end of the year”.
“From a parking lot in California, cross-country to Fresh York or from Seattle to Florida, these cars should be able to go anywhere on the highway system,” he said.
He also exposed that he had test-driven the semi-autonomous electrical truck Tesla plans to unveil in September, telling it was “so nimble”.
“You will drive it around like a sports car,” he said.
“In a tug-of-war inbetween a Tesla semi and a diesel semi, the Tesla would pull the diesel uphill.”
Ted curator Chris Anderson asked Mr Musk why he had so many diverse interests – on Earth and in Space.
“The value of Tesla is to accelerate the inescapable use of sustainable energy and if it accelerates that by a decade, then that would be a fundamental aspiration,” said Mr Musk.
But, he added, the advancement of space technology was not inescapable and would only happen if someone worked hard to make it a reality.
“It is significant to have an inspiring future and if it doesn’t include being out there among the starlets, that is amazingly depressing.
“I am not attempting to be anyone’s saviour.
“I just want to think about the future and not feel sad.”