Local media in Las Vegas were invited for a taste of Elon Musk’s new form of ‘public transportation’ on ThursdayBut how futuristic is this technology, which Musk’s Boring Company has dubbed the “Loop”? That depends on how futuristic you think a car that is slowly driven by a human in a tunnel can be.
The $ 52 million Las Vegas Loop, a tunnel that sits 12 meters underground, is approximately 1.5 miles (2.4 km) long and has three stops around the Las Vegas Convention Center: Central Station, which is underground, as well as West Station and South Station, both above ground to be.
Mick Akers, a reporter for the Review Journal, tweeted a handful of videos Thursday showing the Boring Company transportation system in Las Vegas. And it looks pretty disappointing to say the least.
The videos show that a Tesla car is driven by a human driver and has a top speed of just 35 miles per hour, according to the Review Journal. And while yesterday’s media preview was meant to be a special look, exclusive to Las Vegas media outlets, it sounds like reporters on the ground didn’t get much new information at all.
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“Now we got to see a lot during this tour. Heck, I’m in a Tesla now, ‘said reporter James Schaeffer, trying to sound like this tour was more than worth its time.
“But there are some details we’re not so sure about … that we’ll find out more about, such as loading and waiting times and the 16 passenger vehicles that will pass through these tunnels,” Schaeffer continued. “Until then, we just go for the ride like everyone else.”
Whatever happened to it 16-person vehiclesWhen Musk first announced the Loop, it really looked like an exciting new transportation system. Musk promised that any vehicle could fit more than a dozen people in and that everything was autonomous.
But it doesn’t look like much of everything is automatic anymore. You even have to tell your human driver where you want to go. The Boring Company uploaded a video to Vimeo with instructions for the Las Vegas Loop with those precise instructions.
The big selling point is that your 15-minute walk from one side of the convention center to the other is shortened to ‘just a few minutes,’ according to the Las Vegas Review JournalBut again, questions about loading time are still very much in the air.
“At full capacity, the Boring Company’s Convention Center Loop can transport 4,400 people per hour in its fleet of 62 vehicles,” Akers tweeted, seemingly contradicting his colleague who reported it still is unclearGizmodo couldn’t confirm anything, given that Musk is notoriously hostile to journalists and even closed Tesla’s PR department late last year
We still have a lot of questions that are not easily answered by the colorful videos of the Boring Company. And hopefully those questions will be answered when the Loop opens, probably sometime in the coming months.
What did reporters finally see on Thursday? Colorful lights. A lot of colorful lights, it seems. And not much else. We’re not saying Las Vegas wasted $ 50 million on a stupid tunnel, but it isn’t not don’t say that either.