Elon Musk revealed what’s next for The Boring Company in a series of tweets on Wednesday, a day after he demonstrated how the underground tunnels the startup is developing would operate in Los Angeles.
“Next step for @BoringCompany Loop is demonstrating high throughput at high speed. Target is 4000 vehicles/hour at 155mph (250km/h),” he said.
Musk said the company will offer vehicles in a range of sizes for passengers in its proposed underground tunnel system.
“A variety of vehicles, like normal roads, from a small car to a densely seated bus. Must be seated & belted for high speed safety,” he said.
Musk then said the company’s vehicles could carry over 100,000 people per hour through one of its tunnels if the vehicles resembled “densely seated” buses, but he said the company would instead focus on providing a range of vehicle options for customers.
“If all vehicles were densely seated buses, throughput in excess of 100,000 people per hour per lane is possible, but better to offer a range of vehicles & let people decide what makes them happy,” he said.
The Boring Company, which was founded to dig tunnels for the proposed Loop and Hyperloop transit systems, unveiled its first test tunnel in Hawthorne, California, on Tuesday. The company has so far won a bid to build a tunnel for the Loop transit system in Chicago and has proposed building tunnels in Los Angeles, New York, Baltimore, and Washington, DC. (Musk has suggested the company could also build a tunnel in San Francisco.)
The Boring Company has received approval to dig a 10.3-mile tunnel beneath Baltimore and begin preliminary work in Washington, DC.
Hyperloop, first proposed by Musk in a 2013 white paper, would carry passengers in pods at speeds of over 600 mph. Loop resembles the Hyperloop but would be used for shorter distances that require slower speeds. Musk has said Loop pods would hold 16 people and travel at 150 mph. He has also said a Loop system could be accessed by dozens of small stations that would transport passengers underground and take up as much space as a parking spot.