The Tesla Loop, official name LVCC Loop, is a tunnel approximately 3.5 kilometers long that serves to connect some areas of Las Vegas. Passengers arrive at the stop, do not pay any fare and are transported by drivers who drive in the tunnel: all the cars used for the service are strictly Tesla.
Las Vegas has a problem with i public transport. The area of Stripthat of casinos and hotels, is an archipelago of enormous structures with varying degrees of tackiness connected by passages and bridges. Below is a constant flow of carstending to be in the queue.
For those who don’t want to take an Uber there is just one small bus and a monorail. Or at least it was like that until 2019, when The Boring Company started building the Tesla Loopa system of underground tunnels which connects the pavilions of the Las Vegas Convention Center. The official name is LVCC Loop.
The Boring Company: Elon Musk’s project to dig tunnels
The Boring Company is one of companies founded by Elon Musk. His birth is curious. In 2017 it started as a spin-off of SpaceX except that instead of looking towards orbit or launching the Starlink satellites that have ended up in the Italian public debate, The Boring Company deals with tunnels. Of course, in its history it also sold a flamethrower, but that’s not the key part. The idea behind The Boring Company is simple and Elon Musk himself described it well in one of the podcasts recorded together with Joe Rogan.
We are used to seeing in our cities a two-dimensional traffic: And this has limits. The roads cannot always be widened, the number of cars is not constant but has peaks during the day and this creates traffic jams that are difficult to resolve. If our road network also ran underground it could be done traffic flowat least from the main arteries. The idea behind the project is this, the drop point we saw in Las Vegas is a little different. At least, for now. There are plans that include new stops.
The tour inside the Loop: an endless caravan of Teslas
The contract to build the Tesla Loop was expensive 48.7 million dollars. At the moment the tunnel is long 3.5 kilometers and, according to tests, it can carry further 4,000 passengers per hour. The question, of course, is: how do people move inside the tunnel? The ticket is freeat the stops there are no turnstiles but attendants who explain what to do.
Inside the tunnel they move non-stop all day dozens and dozens of Teslas. A fleet of cars all driven by drivers who enter and exit the loop seamlessly. They emerge from the tunnel, stop at the stop signs, pick up passengers and then set off again. There is only one roadyou can’t go wrong. Just enough keep your distance from other cars. Sometimes you go up to the surface, other times you enter the tunnel. Just to give a touch of the future the walls are white and illuminated by colored LED strips.
For passengers the solution is efficient. The queue passes quickly, the journey is curious. If you are lucky enough to have a hotel near the Loop it can even be convenient. Of course, if we look at the economic effort and the work of the drivers, we only hope that the Tesla Loop is not among the i’sgoddesses that we want to export to Mars. Already with autonomous vehicles, such as the Cybercabs presented at the latest Tesla event, everything would be different. The transition is scheduled, it is not yet clear when.
