What started with a tweetstorm about the misery of sitting in traffic is now a full-scale operation to revolutionize our transportation system using high-speed tunnels. On Wednesday, we finally got a glimpse of this game-changing new technology.
Traffic is driving me nuts. Am going to build a tunnel boring machine and just start digging…
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 17, 2016
Elon Musk appears to be making good progress on the radical transit concept he showed off in a video earlier this year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5V_VzRrSBI&t=1s
The idea is to build out a web of underground tunnels and use high-speed electric sleds to move cars through them at extremely high speeds.
But before Musk sends us barreling at 125 miles per hour toward our destination, he will first need to build a system that drops us from the streets we use today, down into an ultrafast underground world.
The solution is simple: elevators. And now we’re getting our first glimpse at what they will look like via a video uploaded to Musk’s Instagram account.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BW_-mlYAMrs/?taken-by=elonmusk
The test run appears to have gone smoothly. The Tesla Model S confidently rolls to its place on the platform and quickly drops down into the abyss as planned. Several commenters noted how small the platform was—barely long enough to fit the full length of the Tesla. That would cause some real problems for truck drivers, but it’s important to remember that this a very early version of the models we may one day see lining our streets.
Unfortunately, we don’t get a good glimpse at the detachable sled, perhaps the most important part of the system. Nevertheless, I never thought watching an elevator could be so captivating.
H/T the Verge