If you happen to be in Los Angeles on December 11, you might get lucky and be one of the first to ride a "skate" on the world's first underground rapid-transit tunnel employing "Loop" technology.
Tesla. Inc CEO Elon Musk tweeted The Boring Company, which he founded in 2016, will open a small length of the tunnel under Los Angeles to the public. The tunnel is located at the southern suburb of Hawthorne, between downtown LA and Torrance.
To be demoed on Dec. 10 will be The Boring Company's "Loop" system. Mounted on special electric-powered platforms called skates, motor vehicles and people riding special electric vehicles will be whisked through the system's tunnels at up to 240 km/h.
Elevators take skates from the surface to the tunnel system. The underground rail system will consist of a series of layered tunnels moving in different directions,
A skate can be a vehicle that can carry from eight to 16 passengers. It can also be a flatbed that will transport a car driven onto it. You can view the video of these two iterations of the skates at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5V_VzRrSBI.
The first tunnel is almost done, tweeted Musk. Opens Dec 10. He announced the opening event will take place in the evening. There will be free rides for the public the next day, he said.
The Boring Company's Hawthorne tunnel runs north from SpaceX property to 120th Street. The tunnel then turns west under 120th for some two miles.
The Loop system is different from the longer-range Hyperloop projects currently being developed by other tech firms such as Hyperloop Transportation Technologies and Virgin Hyperloop One.
Musk said his tunnel will help to ease "soul-destroying traffic" around Los Angeles.
A video released by The Boring Company last April shows just how the Loop system works. It shows a Tesla Model S driving up to a skate and parking inside it. The skate then lowers itself underground and onto a monorail. It zooms forward inside the tunnel with the sedan and its passengers just sitting there enjoying the ride.
The concept has a vehicle driving onto the skate. The engine is turned-off and the vehicle and its passenger will be transported from one end of the tunnel to the other.
Musk first announced plans to bore a tunnel to his SpaceX offices in Los Angeles in December 2016 after being stuck in traffic. Traffic is driving me nuts, he tweeted in exasperation. He went on: Am going to build a tunnel boring machine and just start digging.
