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Musk outlines cost-cutting plan for Boring Co: cheaper, faster tunnel digging
One of the large reveals made by Tesla and SpaceX Chief Elon Musk at TED2017 was his plan to create a multi-layer high-speed tunnel infrastructure to support mobility by way of electric skates and Hyperloop tubes.
A key point that he drove home for the underground tunnel network was the integration of the system into cities.
“You have to be able to integrate the entrance and exit of the tunnel seamlessly into the fabric of the city. So, by having an elevator, sort of a car skate that is on an elevator, you can integrate the entrance and exits to the tunnel network just by using 2 parking spaces.”
Musk shared a video demonstrating how skate elevators would be integrated into city streets where they await vehicles looking to be transported through the underground labyrinth of tunnels. The serial tech entrepreneur envisions loading docks wherein vehicles would simply pull into the skate, get lowered into the tunnel network, and be sent along a slot car-like track at speeds of 200 km/h ( 124 mph). The Boring Company’s tunnel network won’t simply alleviate surface congestion, it will completely transform the way we move cars, people and freight, says Musk.
It is worth noting that The Boring Company and Tesla are under control of Musk, while the Hyperloop project has been open sourced, but with support from SpaceX.
Eliminating human drivers allows the skates to move at much faster speeds than human-controlled vehicles. Fixed routes within the tunnel network further improve safety beyond the dynamic nature of human-determined driving routes. The tunnel network is also infinitely scalable. “You can alleviate any arbitrary level of open congestion with a 3D tunnel network.” and that “There’s no real limit to how many levels of tunnels you can have.”, says Musk from TED2017.
The key barrier to creating tunnels today is the exorbitant cost. The recent 2.5 mile expansion to the Los Angeles subway system came at a cost of nearly $1 billion per mile. Musk and team at the Boring Company hope to cut the cost of tunneling by a significant amount by streamlining the tunneling process and reinventing the machines that help facilitate the digging.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5V_VzRrSBI
Building Tunnels For Less
First, the team is looking to cut the diameter of the tunnels they dig, moving from the traditional tunnel diameter for passenger vehicles of 26 to 28-feet to a 12-foot standard diameter which would be sufficient for the Tesla skate. On the surface, this might not seem like a lot, but cutting the diameter by 50% cuts the cross sectional area by a factor of four. This is significant as the speed and cost of tunneling is largely driven by the amount of cross sectional area to dig. Being able to cut out 75% of the time associated with digging comes with enormous cost savings.
Second, the team plans to attack head-on the way tunneling machines currently dig. Traditional machines dig, slowly and incrementally, then stop to install reinforcements to support the newly exposed earthen walls. Musk and team are working to install the reinforcements continuously thus eliminating the need to pause operations. This integration is expected to increase the speed of the overall process by as much as 50%.
The Boring Company tunneling machine spotted in front of SpaceX in April, 2017
Finally, the team believes that current digging machines are nowhere near their power and thermal limits, and is looking to ‘jack up the power’ to the digging machines. Doing this, the team hopes to increase the speed by a factor of 4 or 5 on top of the other improvements being suggested by Musk.
Musk also revealed that The Boring Company has a pet snail named Gary who can currently travel at 14 times the speed of existing tunneling machines. While this is more a testament about how slow the boring process is than the amazing speed of Gary, it is a fun target for the team, to be able to build tunnels quicker than Gary can crawl, and continues the comedic spin on the new company.
These tunnels could be kept at or near a vacuum to reduce or eliminate air resistance for all the moving objects within it. Curiously, Musk shared that,
“To withstand the water table, you have to design a wall to be able to withstand 5 or 6 atmospheres. To go to vacuum, you only need to be able to withstand 1 atmosphere.”
It is clear that Musk is very excited about this new Boring Company. He indicated during his sit down at TED2017 that he spends 2-3% of his time on the project, noting that it’s essentially being run as not much more than an intern project with a used boring machine and a few people dedicating partial effort to it.
A new report from Reuters claims that a transport authority in Sweden is pushing back against the approval of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving suite because it will travel over speed limits.
The report says the Swedish Transport Administration (TRV) recommends the European Union votes against FSD’s approval. TRV believes it should not be approved until Tesla disables FSD’s ability to speed.
TRV sent a letter to the European Union’s Technical Committee on Motor Vehicles (TCMV), which is set to meet on June 30 to discuss the potential approval of the Tesla FSD suite in the country. Tesla, which has received various approvals in Europe over the past two months, has not provided a comment.
Teslas operating on FSD do travel over the speed limit, depending on the Speed Profile that is chosen. Drivers have the ability to disengage FSD at any point; Tesla specifically states that those supervising the suite are responsible for its actions.
Let’s cut to the chase: humans operating any vehicle speed almost daily in the United States. Realistically, speed limits in the U.S. are more frequently treated as speed minimums. However, other countries are different, and driving behaviors are less aggressive.
TRV believes that “allowing automated systems to systematically exceed legal speed limits…risks undermining both the legal framework and the expected safety benefits of vehicle automation,” the report stated. It’s surprising that Tesla has not received this claim from other countries previously.
This could be a good argument to bring Max Speed back, the setting that previously allowed the driver to choose the absolute fastest the car would travel.
This would still put the responsibility of supervision in the hands of the driver. It would allow the driver to choose whether the car would travel over the speed limit or not, acknowledging that they set the speed, and if they get pulled over, there would be no ability to argue it.
However, it does not seem as if this is something Tesla will do, especially considering many U.S. drivers have requested the feature in an effort to eliminate speeding or at least tone it down. The company has not shown any interest in bringing it back.
Tesla has approvals for FSD in Europe in Estonia, Lithuania, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Belgium.
Tesla is going to let you guide Full Self-Driving with Grok in 3 months, CEO Elon Musk confirmed on X.
The response from Musk, which revealed Tesla plans to allow drivers to effectively control the car and its navigation more explicitly using Grok, puts the feature for about September.
A Tesla owner said that Full Self-Driving is great, but owners should be able to “converse with Grok like we can with an Uber driver.” She then used examples like, “Grok, turn right here,” and “Drop us off right here, we’ll walk due to traffic,” and finally,” Drop at entrance first, then park far away.”
Coincidentally, the final piece of dialogue would also mean features like Banish are potentially on the way soon.
This functionality will be there in about 3 months or so
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 18, 2026
Banish is also referred to as “Reverse Summon,” and would enable the car to self-park while dropping occupants off at their destination.
This would be a great way to improve the overall experience while supervising FSD. Navigation is already a major painpoint that many owners complain about. Manual overrides when a maneuver is requested or canceled (like using the turn signal stalk to override a navigation route), do not always work.
The feature could be especially useful in street parking scenarios in a city, where spots are sometimes tough to come by. Many of us who grab dinner in a more populated area will park a street or two over from wherever we’re going, because sometimes you know that’s the best you will get. If a driver using FSD could say, “Hey Grok, turn right here on Queen St. and park in that open spot on the right,” it could save a lot of confusion FSD might have on its own.
Musk teased that a similar feature was “coming” back in February:
Tesla Full Self-Driving set to get an awesome new feature, Elon Musk says
It is certainly surprising that Tesla is doing it at this point. The company’s more recent moves have been more evident of taking control and inputs away from humans and putting them in the AI’s hands more frequently. The biggest example of this was taking away Max Speed in AI4 cars, giving us Speed Profiles, and not having any input on the fastest speed the car will travel.
Of course, giving navigation preferences to Grok is availble already in Teslas, but not at the drop of a hat. Instead, you can suggest a certain route at the beginning of your drive.
Here’s an example of that from December:
🚨🏈 I am taking my parents and Fiancee to the @Ravens game next weekend and asked @Grok to help me route my @Tesla through a specific neighborhood to reach the correct Lot we will park in.
This is a great example of the new @grok nav integration with the Tesla Holiday Update: pic.twitter.com/rPp4I7q8Yv
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) December 13, 2025
Finally, the original post that Musk responded to mentioned a parking preference after dropping off the occupants, which describes the Banish feature that Tesla has teased for years.
We’re not sure if Musk was responding more to the ability to guide the car with Grok, or whether he also was including Banish in the three-month prediction timeframe.
A close-up image of a Cybercab engineering vehicle in Peabody, Massachusetts, reveals a compact triangular side repeater camera housing equipped with an integrated washer mechanism.
This seemingly small hardware addition could prove to be one of the most critical components for achieving reliable, unsupervised Full Self-Driving (FSD) — not just for the dedicated Robotaxi but potentially for existing AI4-equipped vehicles as well.
The washer system’s importance cannot be overstated in Tesla’s vision-only autonomy approach. Cameras are the sole sensory input for the neural networks powering FSD, constantly interpreting the environment for safe navigation. In real-world conditions, however, lenses quickly accumulate rain, snow, mud, dust, or road spray.
Many of us Tesla owners, especially those who deal with any sort of winter weather at all, know the all-too-common alert that pops up when cameras are obstructed:
Even brief obstructions can drop perception confidence, trigger safety disengagements, or force the vehicle to pull over, although these are relatively rare. Instead, most of the time, the camera will need a wipe from the owner next time they stop the car.
But unlike human drivers who can manually clear their view, a Robotaxi operating 24/7 without a steering wheel or mirrors must maintain pristine vision autonomously. The Cybercab’s side repeater washer delivers targeted cleaning bursts precisely where needed for merging, lane changes, and blind-spot monitoring — functions that demand uninterrupted visibility from the external cameras:
And this is how the side camera and washer look like on a Cybercab. This is from an Engineering vehicle in Peabody MA. pic.twitter.com/Re8VknpmLM
— Tobias Goebel (Unsupervised) (@tpgoebel) June 17, 2026
This hardware directly tackles a known pain point in current FSD deployments. Owners frequently report camera-related alerts during inclement weather, which is understandable, but needs to be solved for a true autonomous experience.
For a production Robotaxi fleet aiming for high utilization and minimal downtime, robust washer systems represent a foundational reliability upgrade; essentially, they’re a must-have. Early sightings suggest the design may extend to rear cameras as well, creating a comprehensive cleaning architecture that keeps the entire vision suite operational in harsh environments.
Without it, even the most advanced neural nets struggle when their “eyes” are compromised.
What Does This Mean for AI4 Cars?
This Cybercab detail raises timely questions for AI4 cars already on the road. While Hardware 4 delivers superior compute and camera resolution compared to earlier versions, production models typically lack dedicated side and rear washers. Tesla has included them on Model Y robotaxis that it is using in the fleet:
Tesla Robotaxi has a highly-requested hardware feature not available on typical Model Ys
As Tesla refines unsupervised FSD for broader release, the gap in environmental resilience becomes evident. Software improvements can help mitigate issues, but they cannot fully replace physical cleaning in heavy rain or muddy conditions. Analysts and owners increasingly speculate that AI4 vehicles may eventually require similar washer retrofits — or a future AI4.5 variant — to match the Cybercab’s all-weather readiness and support the same level of autonomy.
As testing progresses, the Cybercab’s washer mechanism highlights Tesla’s pragmatic focus on real-world robustness. It may well become the hardware piece that determines how quickly and reliably FSD scales from prototypes to everyday vehicles.
Tesla faces Full Self-Driving pushback in EU over ‘speeding’
Tesla teases greater Grok FSD integration and ‘Banish’ feature ‘in about 3 months’
