Elon Musk says underground "sled" system could be ready within months
HAWTHORNE, Calif. - Always wanted to be a guinea pig? Here's your chance.
Billionaire Elon Musk says that members of the public will be able to test a transportation system for scooting commuters underground on electric sleds. The technology mogul, whose companies include Tesla and SpaceX, said on Thursday over Twitter that he's almost finished building a tunnel under a Los Angeles suburb that will be used to test the system.
Pending regulatory approval, the system will offer free rides "in a few months," he said in a post on Instagram that featured a video of the tunnel. Another Musk venture, The Boring Company, is building the tunnel.
Last year, the Hawthorne City Council approved a roughly two-mile test tunnel from Musk's SpaceX rocket plant to a point east of Los Angeles International Airport. Boring Company is seeking approval to tunnel into western Los Angeles.
Musk describes a system, which The Boring Company calls "Loop," where vehicles would descend via elevators into tunnels and move on electrically powered sleds.
"Loop is a high-speed underground public transportation system in which passengers are transported on autonomous electric skates traveling at 125-150 miles per hour," the company says on its website. "Electric skates will carry between eight and 16 passengers (mass transit), or a single passenger vehicle."
His latest tweet says an operational system would give priority to pods for pedestrians and cyclists.
