Test drive through the Musk tube – that’s how the Las Vegas Loop works

The direction in which the journey begins must seem very familiar to Elon Musk at this point. Because users of the Las Vegas Loop primarily go downhill – and far. Just as the stock price of his main company, and with it Elon Musk’s private fortune, has plummeted since the botched Twitter takeover, so too are the passengers of this supposedly new mode of transportation humming – only that they’re not losing any money.

The descent ends twelve meters deep in a kind of underground bus station – with cool music and psychedelic lighting. It is the core of this supposed innovation for public transport. Because the traffic up there is already stagnant on normal days and likes to come to a standstill during trade shows, Elon Musk’s Boring Company has dug a tunnel in which an armada of Teslas has been taking over the shuttle smoothly and smoothly for a good year – but only to just under three kilometers between three stops. And it is said that more than 50 million dollars was spent on it.

At some point about 50 kilometers below the entire city and autonomous at best, of course, half-hour journeys would then have to be completed in five minutes. But that is not everything. Because the same tunnels as in Las Vegas – almost four meters wide, almost four meters high, milled into the ground by a self-developed drilling machine at a record speed of one mile per week, should also provide a home for the Hyperloop in the future.

In it, new vehicles will be shot through half the country like a giant air snake at ridiculous speeds of up to 1,250 km / h – and short-haul flights will be replaced.

Then it goes from Las Vegas to Los Angeles in less than half an hour; a route that takes two gross hours on the plane and can be completed by car in just under five hours.

Test drive in the taxi tunnel under Las Vegas

But all that is still a long way off. In practice, however, the descent into the Tesla tunnel is quite ordinary. Because there are no futuristic robocabs driving there, only the Tesla Model X. And there are no computers behind the wheel, but people of flesh and blood.

The next test drive at a speed of around 50 km/h takes less than three minutes. During this time, you will get little more than assurance from the driver that everything is “safe” here and that there has not even been a bump in the parking lot, let alone a collision in the tunnel.

In particular, there is not enough time to dispel any doubts about the usefulness of this system, because the Vegas Loop is currently no more than a subway with very small cars, short intervals and comfortable seats.

But Elon Musk should at least get in one of his cars and be driven through the loop if the view of his stock prices and his bank statement spoil his mood otherwise. Because he could learn a lesson that would also give him hope in business: there is light at the end of the tunnel – and things are looking good again.

(t online)