Elon Musk's Hyperloop Test Tunnel is coming to life at SpaceX site

Elon Musk announced that his Boring Co.’s first hyperloop test tunnel will open in less than two months. The IT services project is Musk’s grander vision to fight “soul-destroying traffic” where vehicles are lowered into underground tunnels in electric-powered elevators that would transport vehicles at high speed and in a cost-effective way.

The freshly released images from the Boring Co. confirm that the high-speed underground tunnels are quickly taking shape near SpaceX’s Hawthorne, CA headquarters. The images reveal a freshly painted tunnel in white and a shaft that’s being constructed on a private lot at 120th Street and Prairie Avenue, roughly at halfway point of the 2-mile test tunnel.

Prior to gaining permission for the construction of a “Loop Lift” garage-elevator system from Hawthorne’s city council, the tunneling startup company began construction of a tunnel entrance at the Space-X adjacent testing grounds, in 2017. Soon after that, a video was released showing a Tesla Model X zipping through a Boring Company tunnel.

The trial tunnel will have a top speed of 155 miles per hour and will offer free rides for the public on the next day of its inauguration on December 10th this year, tweeted the billionaire-entrepreneur Elon Musk. And unlike other traditional underground tunnels for passenger vehicles, the Boring Co.’s tunnels will be smaller by 50% in diameter which in turn cuts down 75% of time associated with digging, Musk said.

The trial is “an important part of the longer-term vision the company is trying to build,” said the Boring Company spokesperson Jane Labanowski.