Elon Musk’s Boring Company won approval from the Hawthorne City Council on Tuesday night for a prototype of a revolutionary new garage that would connect passenger cars to the entrepreneur’s envisioned underground hyperloop.
It’s the latest proof of concept coming out of the company Musk says started from a social-media joke about how to solve traffic congestion in Los Angeles. It turns out Musk wasn’t kidding and the concept gets more serious with each passing week.
The prototype being tested soon could very well be a proving ground for Musk’s own personal route to work someday – Musk and many others, perhaps.
Musk is also the high-profile creator of Tesla and SpaceX.
Musk’s Boring Company recently bought a private residence abutting the one-mile underground tunnel it already built beneath 120th Street between Crenshaw Boulevard and Prairie Avenue near SpaceX.
The garage at the residence would connect to the tunnel.
But as part of its approval, the company agreed not to open the test elevator to the public or to have cars move in and out of the garage from the street. Cars would enter the tunnel from the SpaceX campus, move through the tunnel and on to the garage and then back to SpaceX, so the test process would not create additional traffic on the street.
The company wants to show that it can utilize an elevator and short tunnel spur for developing a high-speed underground public transportation system. It plans to rent the house as well.
“It’s an important part of the longer-term vision the company is trying to build,” said company representative Jane Labanowski.
As sketched out in public documents, a car would drive onto a “skate” that connects to a hyperloop track, such as the ones being developed by two private companies and recently featured in the collegiate Hyperloop Competition at SpaceX.
The company also on Tuesday earned approval for a separate short spur from its existing tunnel in order to remove a boring machine that it first intended to leave in the ground.
Originally, the company planned to bore a two-mile length of tunnel, but as Labanowski explained to the City Council, they identified an opportunity to remove its expensive cutter head. So, it now plans to reduce the tunnel length to just one mile and extricate it from another piece of property the company recently purchased.
Where the company chose to retrieve the boring machine, it purchased the property at 4012 120th Street near Prairie Avenue, which housed a former a cabinet maker and other light industrial businesses.
In granting the Boring Company unanimous approval, the City Council also waived requirements under the California Environmental Quality Act. Councilmember Angie Reyes English questioned why the city needed to move so quickly on the permits and grant such exemptions.
“My desire is to ensure the community is made aware,” English said. “I want to make sure we’re doing this the right way.”
A Boring Company representative said more than 100 residents were notified about the projects, which the company said would have minimal to zero impacts on noise. In addition, the company promised to fully secure both locations.
“What we want to do is show proof of concept and as quickly as possible,” said company representative Brett Horton. “We are not asking to go around the public process. Yes, we do move fast. We are trying to revolutionize transportation and don’t want to get bogged down.”
Horton explained that at the garage and the site where the cutting head will emerge, the company will plan on extensive security, including video surveillance and triple-barrier protection.
The concept of a vehicle that descends down an elevator into a tunnel was also presented this year in the Boring Company’s proposal for a public transport system to Dodger Stadium. The company has also demonstrated the car elevator at its Hawthorne headquarters.
The 3.6-mile “Dugout Loop” from downtown Los Angeles to Dodger Stadium would be the first commercial project for the company, which has made the most headlines for selling out of 20,000 flame throwers and taking months to deliver. Some customers are reportedly still waiting.
While Musk is responsible for putting the hyperloop concept into motion with his 2013 white paper, his Boring Company has largely stayed out of the commercial hyperloop business, focusing instead on reducing the cost of underground boring.
The hyperloop Musk described, which has now been fully demonstrated, involves pressurizing a tunnel and creating a near vacuum without friction. The pods then levitate off the track using electromagnets similar to a bullet train. In this way, pods carrying cars and trucks or as commuter trains – could conceivably reach speeds close to 700 mph with very little energy.
Additional commercial hyperloop projects are being developed in Chicago and China by Los Angeles-based Hyperloop Transportation Technologies. Richard Branson’s Virgin Hyperloop One has plans to connect Los Angeles with Las Vegas and recently announced a proposed deal in India.
With the test spur and car elevator approved this week in Hawthorne, company representatives said they believe they are onto something transformative.
“We believe we’re demonstrating a concept that could truly enhance and improve the lives of everybody in the region,” Labanowsk said.
For its next steps, the company will submit more detailed plans and seek the needed easement permits.
