Elon Musk bores tunnel to revolutionize city driving

Tunnels are also small-bore, using extracted dirt to build walls.

Building walls eh. There might just be a ready-made market for that dirt if you know who to ask.

Good on him!!!!!

The article says his cost per mile was about 10 million USD. A few decades ago 11 miles of new subway/light rail line were built on Wilshire Blvd, here in Los Angeles, and the cost was about 1 billion USD per mile. If Mr. Musk can achieve similar results at a small fraction of the cost, then please, do so!!!

Awesome. Love your work bro!

Musk brushed aside worries about earthquakes in temblor-prone California, repeatedly contending that tunnels were the safest place to be when plates shift and the earth shakes.

I'm afraid that's not quite how physics works. Especially if you have multiple tunnels criss-crossing close to each other, thereby weaking the structural integrity of the surrounding terrain. One moderate quake, and most of those tunnels will cave-in. If there's really 4,000+ cars "zipping" through the tunnels when the quake hits, that's 4,000+ cars trapped deep underground, very hard to reach, and very hard to escape from too. Those cars will effectively become coffins. A handful of people may survive, the rest will perish.

I sure hope Elon Musk comes to realise the inherent flaws in his idea long before this ever happens. Ideally before he even establishes such a network. You want to reduce congestion? Maybe try getting people to stop taking the car out to go five feet. People are way too lazy, and will drive anywhere that takes longer than 60 seconds for them to walk/waddle to. Another area to look at is public transport, which would be far more appealing if it was cheaper and more reliable.

There are options available. Safer, and more logical, than putting holes everywhere.

Cheap until you consider It only allows movement in one direction, it's 12 feet wide, it has no actual stations, and it doesn't include emergency exits.

Gee whiz.

I have to hand it to him, he can realize what others dream of, even if it seems foolhardy to most of us at the moment. There are many like him, too... Richard Branson being another good example.

And... you also, have to forgive his enthusiasm with Social Media faux-pas's which cost him a fair bit of $ with certain parts of the "Establishment" of Finance. This is simply something, that many "like" him would have done too. We have to remember, that Technology is not simply a Science, but can also be an "Art-form"... creativity meets Science, meets Accountants/"Bean-counters". .. what a difficult situation.....

Given that Governments have mostly dropped out of the picture, it's now up to people like him, to test ideas out, and take the risks towards an idea that may in future be beneficial to all. The only obstacle therein is IP, which should, within a Venture/Proof of concept, situation be severely limited in timescale (with certain protection conditions... something for Lawyers).

I wish we had more Elon Musk's in the World, or if we do already, that they collectively make themselves known in order to be protected and avoid concerns... and together as a "concerned" group can be scrutinised and questioned and avoid local temporal political issues.

A nice example would be the Bill Gates foundation, leading the way upon the eradication of Malaria - something with Global Warming, may actually become rather poignant within Western Countries in the future.

What needs to exist, is a framework that these individuals can be protected within, for such generous activities, whilst at the same time, being subjected to intense scrutiny without harm to their goals unless they are deemed to beech a "common consensus" of going too far. (Science vs Politics).

Perhaps it is time for a Global Council of Philanthropic efforts, a sort of parallel UN organisation controlled by no one, other than a Globally agreed upon set of boundaries that they can operate within in a non-polarised/Militarised form without interference. And if any breach of that were to occur, then a complete shutdown of activities relating to the effected parties would take place in order to protect the remainder. Who would support this ? The Investors, as they themselves would be subjected to penalties within their own/other Markets should they breach the rules set aside in the Philanthropic market place.... so a Cooperation needs to exist between various Financial markets to ensure this happens....

I think, we need to look to a lot of past Sci-Fi writers in order to determine our possible futures, as they have clearly spent more time thinking over such matters than I could have over a few minutes. It should be time now, for Sci-Fi to be a reality for those Brave enough to take that Educated step forward.

Stupid idea. Yes, right alongside the San Andreas fault and how do you extract people out from under there if there is an accident (and you know that’s inevitable) inside the tunnel? Another waste of time and money, another reason why people are leaving this mismanaged State.

Can i play!