The Boring Company

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The Boring Company

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founding 17th December 2016
Seat Hawthorne , California , United StatesUnited StatesUnited States 
management Steve Davis (project leader)
Branch Tunnel construction , infrastructure
Website www.boringcompany.com

The Boring Company (abbreviation TBC , English for "the drilling - or also - the boring company") is an American tunnel construction and infrastructure company . It was founded by Elon Musk and is based in Hawthorne , California , on the SpaceX site .

technology

The tunnels will be driven by electrically operated shuttles that can carry up to 16 passengers at the same time. The shuttles are to be built by Tesla, Inc. and reach speeds of up to 150 mph. According to the Boring Company, at least in its first phase, the system would give priority to commuters who do not have their own vehicles.

history

Elon Musk had complained on December 17, 2016 via Twitter about the traffic in the city of Los Angeles and announced that he would " build a tunnel boring machine and just dig out". On the same day, December 17, 2016, Musk founded The Boring Company .

Musk had dealt with tunnels before; On the one hand, because they are of great importance in connection with the Hyperloop concept, on the other hand, because they could solve the problem of traffic congestion in urban regions, so that one is no longer "stuck in annoying traffic jams" all the time . Previously, Musk had repeatedly advised other people who had asked him about novel business ideas to consider tunneling. The traffic jams in Los Angeles, in which Musk was repeatedly stuck, were the trigger for him to set up his own tunneling company.

Since the beginning of February 2017 , a pit with a length of 15 m, a width of 9 m and a depth of 4.6 m has been excavated in the parking lot of the SpaceX site in Hawthorne , California . Musk chose the parking lot as the first test site, as no building permit had to be issued by the city for the construction work on its own site.

At the end of April 2017, The Boring Company showed the underground transport system in an animation on YouTube . In the video, a Tesla drives through the crowded streets of Los Angeles and stops at the side of the road on a platform that, like an elevator for cars, slowly sinks underground. It fits into the traffic in a tunnel. The individual platforms are guided automatically on rails and should be able to reach speeds of up to 200 km / h. In an overview, several dozen tunnels can be seen in which cars are transported. The platform finally disengages itself from traffic, takes the elevator back to the surface and releases the car into normal traffic.

In an interview, Musk said that while he is a fan of flying things, alluding to the success of his space company SpaceX, he prefers to go underground rather than in the air to deal with traffic problems. The disadvantages of drones and flying cars include, for example, the high volume and the strong air turbulence they create, according to Musk. “They might come down and behead me,” he fears.

Musk wants to reduce the cost of building tunnels by a factor of ten compared to conventional methods. This is to be achieved, among other things, by a smaller cross-section of the tubes. In addition, he plans to radically change the construction process and use significantly more powerful machines. Musk has already contacted Herrenknecht , the German world market leader for tunnel boring, for this purpose .

On Twitter , Musk announced at the end of June 2017 that the "waiting for Godot is over", referring to the play Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett. The tunnel boring machine (TBM) from The Boring Company was in fact given the name "Godot".

On July 20, 2017, Musk announced that he had received an oral commitment from the (U.S.) government to build an underground hyperloop route between New York City , Philadelphia , Baltimore and Washington, DC using the tunneling technology of the Boring Company should be used.

In late July 2017, Musk posted a video of a working car elevator.

In August 2017, Musk received permission from the town of Hawthorne, where the company is based, to dig a tunnel under the urban area. The approximately three kilometer long tunnel is a test tunnel for an underground transport system. This should be opened on December 10, 2018. The Hawthorne Tunnel finally opened on December 18, a week later than initially planned. The company used Tesla Model X vehicles equipped with additional, fold-out castors .

In March 2019 it was announced that the company would build an underground transportation system for the Las Vegas fair. A later expansion could then also incorporate the city's airport and stadium.

financing

The Boring Company is financed through merchandising , among other things . Initially, baseball caps labeled The BORING Company were sold in a limited number of 50,000 pieces at $ 20 each , and the shipping of the second batch was announced for February 23, 2018.

On January 27, 2018, the company announced April 2018 sales of 20,000 devices known as " flame throwers " for $ 500 and "overpriced" fire extinguishers for $ 30. The “flamethrowers” ​​are advertised as “Guaranteed to live up any party! World's safest flamethrower! ”(“ Guaranteed to liven up every party! Safest flamethrower in the world! ”) Within five days, the entire planned production was sold out due to pre-orders. In two videos and one picture, three different-looking prototypes of the device are shown, which are apparently based on the CSI STAR XR-5 airsoft rifle with a gas burner mounted on the front . A liquid gas bottle is also mounted on one of them. The gas burner of the prototypes delivers a yellow flickering flame up to 1 m long with little air or, in another video with air, a 35 cm long blue flame. Burning liquid is not expelled.

The flamethrower is an allusion to a movie scene in Spaceballs in which "Yoghurt" advertises such a device as a merchandising item. Already while the baseball cap was being sold, Elon Musk answered a question about the Boring Company's financing model, half jokingly, that the “real money” comes from merchandising, as he learned from the “documentary” Spaceballs .

In April 2017, the company's owners provided $ 113 million in new capital.

criticism

The Boring Company's transport concept of moving cars underground on self-propelled platforms was not only received positively. Among other things, the focus on private transport was criticized, the fact that work is being continued to invest even more resources in the transport of cars , in which often only one person sits, instead of improving the efficiency of passenger transport and increasing traffic density overall.

In an interview with Wired , the German tunneling expert Manfred König expressed concerns about the feasibility of Musk's plans. Among other things, he sees geology, construction site logistics and fire protection as major challenges. König also refers to the complications in the implementation of the Stuttgart 21 transport project .

Mars

Musk indicated that the tunneling technology developed by The Boring Company could possibly also be used on Mars , where he is pursuing the vision of forming a self-sufficient Mars colonization .

“I do think getting good at digging tunnels could be really helpful for Mars. […] For sure there's going to be a lot of icing mining on Mars, and mining in general to get raw materials. […] You can build a tremendous amount underground with the right boring technology on Mars. [...] So I think there is some overlap in that technology development arena. [...] And then, along the way, building underground habitats where you could get radiation shielding ... you could build an entire city underground if you wanted to. "

“I think getting good at tunneling could really help Mars. […] There will certainly be a lot of mining in ice zones on Mars and mining in general to get raw materials. [...] With the right drilling technology, you can build a tremendous amount underground on Mars. […] So I believe there is some overlap in this area of ​​technological development. [...] And if you then build underground accommodation for the necessary radiation protection, ... you can, if you want, build an entire city underground. "

- Elon Musk

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b The Boring Company - CrunchBase. In: crunchbase.com. Retrieved September 22, 2017 (English).
  2. ↑ a b c d e Elon Musk Is Really Boring . In: Bloomberg.com . February 16, 2017 ( bloomberg.com [accessed September 23, 2017]).
  3. ↑ Nathan Bomey: How Elon Musk launched The Boring Company to revolutionize tunnel digging . In: CNBC . August 3, 2017 ( cnbc.com [accessed September 23, 2017]).
  4. ↑ Darrell Etherington: Elon Musk doesn't just want to bore tunnels - he wants to make boring better . In: TechCrunch . ( techcrunch.com [accessed September 23, 2017]).
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g h Gerhard Hegmann: Elon Musk has a plan for the revolution in tunneling . In: THE WORLD . May 7, 2017 ( welt.de [accessed September 23, 2017]).
  6. ↑ finanzen.net: boring company becomes Tesla's major customer. May 2, 2018, accessed October 10, 2018 .
  7. ↑ teslarati: Elon Musk's Boring Company shows off a very complete looking test tunnel in latest teaser image. July 25, 2018, accessed October 18, 2018 .
  8. ^ Elon Musk: Traffic is driving me nuts. Am going to build a tunnel boring machine and just start digging ... In: @elonmusk. December 17, 2017, accessed on September 23, 2017 .
  9. ^ Elon Musk's Already Tunneling Under Los Angeles . In: WIRED . ( wired.com [accessed September 23, 2017]).
  10. ^ Amelia Heathman: Elon Musk's Boring Company has completed the first 'segment' of a tunnel in LA . In: WIRED UK . ( wired.co.uk [accessed September 23, 2017]).
  11. ^ The Boring Company: The Boring Company - Tunnels. In: Youtube.com. April 28, 2017. Retrieved September 23, 2017 .
  12. ^ A b Felix Reek: Tesla's cars should go underground . In: sueddeutsche.de . 2017, ISSN  0174-4917 ( sueddeutsche.de [accessed on 23 September 2017]).
  13. ↑ Elon Musk: No longer waiting for Godot. It has begun boring and just completed the first segment of tunnel in LA. In: @elonmusk. June 28, 2017, accessed September 23, 2017 .
  14. ↑ Jürgen Schmieder: "We have no idea what we are doing there" . In: sueddeutsche.de . July 16, 2017, ISSN  0174-4917 ( sueddeutsche.de [accessed September 23, 2017]).
  15. ^ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung GmbH: Big announcement: Elon Musk's tunnel borer is now drilling. June 29, 2017. Retrieved September 23, 2017 .
  16. ^ Elon Musk: Just received verbal govt approval for The Boring Company to build an underground NY-Phil-Balt-DC Hyperloop. NY-DC in 29 mins. In: @elonmusk. December 20, 2017, accessed September 23, 2017 .
  17. ^ New York: Hyperloop: Elon Musk receives approval for his super train . In: THE WORLD . July 20, 2017 ( welt.de [accessed September 23, 2017]).
  18. ^ Elon Musk: The Boring Company presents Autoaufzug - Golem.de . ( golem.de [accessed on September 23, 2017]).
  19. ↑ Testing The Boring Company car elevator • Jul 26, 2017 at 6:26 am. In: instagram.com. Retrieved September 23, 2017 (English).
  20. ↑ Elon Musk: The Boring Company is allowed to dig a tunnel - Golem.de . ( golem.de [accessed on September 23, 2017]).
  21. ↑ Martin Jendrischik: Boring Company: Elon Musk shows first tunnel under SpaceX headquarters. In: Cleanthinking: Online magazine on cleantech, smart home and the energy transition. December 18, 2018, accessed July 13, 2019 .
  22. ↑ Elon Musk is supposed to dig a tunnel in Las Vegas! March 7, 2019, accessed March 7, 2019 .
  23. ↑ a b Simon Alvarez: Elon Musk sold $ 2M in The Boring Company Flamethrowers in 24 hours . Teslarati, January 28, 2018.
  24. ↑ a b Sean O'Kane: Here's Elon Musk's $ 500 Boring Company flamethrower . The Verge , January 27, 2018.
  25. ↑ Elon Musk's Boring Company actually sells flamethrowers . Der Standard , January 28, 2018.
  26. ↑ a b https://www.boringcompany.com/flamethrower , accessed January 30, 2018.
  27. ↑ https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/958931799391924224
  28. ↑ Elon Musk trolls Twitter users with Spaceballs video . Futurezone, December 4, 2017.
  29. ↑ Simon Alvarez: Elon Musk gives $ 100 million to fund Boring Co. tunneling project. In: Teslarati. April 17, 2018. Retrieved April 17, 2018 .
  30. ↑ Note Manfred König is editor of the journal Georesources in Moers
  31. ↑ Why Elon Musk's tunneling project could end like Stuttgart 21 . In: WIRED Germany . May 3, 2017 ( wired.de [accessed on September 23, 2017]).
  32. ^ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung GmbH: Colony in space: this is how Elon Musk wants to colonize Mars. September 28, 2016. Retrieved September 23, 2017 .
  33. ↑ a b Elon Musk wants moonbase to be built to 'fire up' interest in space. In: dailymail.co.uk. Retrieved August 24, 2017 .
  34. ↑ a b Elon Musk's LA Tunnel Boring Project is Just Practice for Mars. In: inverse.com. Retrieved August 24, 2017 .