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Elon Musk’s Boring Company abandons one of its planned LA tunnel projects
As The Boring Company prepares to hold a public showing for its first completed tunnel this coming December 10, Elon Musk’s tunneling startup has revealed that it is dropping its plans to dig a tunnel under Sepulveda Blvd. on the Westside of LA. The company’s decision to abandon its project comes amidst its settlement with a group of Westside advocates who alleged that local government violated state law when it decided to exempt the Boring Company’s proof-of-concept tunnel from review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
In a joint statement on Tuesday, The Boring Company, together with the plaintiffs of the case, stated that they have “amicably settled” the lawsuit. The terms of the two parties’ settlement remain confidential, though, as noted by an attorney for the Westside advocates to The San Diego Union-Tribune. With plans for the Sepulveda Blvd tunnel now abandoned, The Boring Co. would be focusing on building the Dugout Loop, a tunnel system connecting the Dodger Stadium and a Metro station, instead.
The legal opposition against the Sepulveda tunnel emerged last May, when two local neighborhood groups — the Brentwood Residents Coalition and the Sunset Coalition — filed a lawsuit, alleging that the project is actually part of a larger system of tunnels that would be used for public transportation in the future.
The tunneling startup was moving briskly through the permit process then, partly since The Boring Company noted that the tunnel would not be used to transport commuters, allowing the project to gain an exemption from environmental review. This was indicated on The Boring Company’s FAQ on its website.
“The tunnel would be used for construction logistics verification, system testing, safety testing, operating procedure verification, and line-switching demonstrations. Phase 1 would not be utilized for public transportation until the proof-of-process tunnel is deemed successful by County government, City government, and TBC.”
At the heart of the plaintiffs’ lawsuit was a map that The Boring Company released for its planned tunnel routes. Included in the proposed routes was a line that appeared to trace the route of the Sepulveda Blvd tunnel. In their lawsuit, the plaintiffs noted that “the state’s stringent environmental review requirements cannot be evaded by chopping large projects into smaller pieces that taken individually appear to have no significant environmental impacts.” The Westside advocates also voiced their disapproval of the city’s commission to approve a route that The Boring Company would use for hauling 80,000 cubic yards of dirt from the tunnel.
The Boring Company’s projects in LA’s Westside have attracted their own fair share of critics. When the advocates filed their lawsuit earlier this year, for one, Santa Monica City Manager Rick Cole aired his skepticism of the tunneling startup’s concept as a whole.
“We’ll have people stuck in traffic on the surface, and this miracle fast lane underground for the people who can afford it. It’ll be toll lanes on steroids,” he said, according to the Los Angeles Times.
While The Boring Company’s settlement with the Westside advocates is a notable roadblock to its projects in the LA area, the tunneling startup is nonetheless making progress on its other activities. The test tunnel under the SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne is now getting refined and is set for public viewing on December 10, and the construction of a prototype garage-elevator that connects directly to a tunnel is seeing a lot of activity. Permits to establish The Brick Store, an outlet where Boring Bricks would be sold, have also been filed.
Apart from these, the tunneling startup is preparing to start its most ambitious project to date — the high-profile Chicago-O’Hare high-speed transport line, which is expected to begin construction soon. Updates about the project have been scarce so far, though photographs taken by Teslarati photographers Pauline Acalin and Tom Cross suggest that a gantry for the Chicago tunnel line, as well as what appears to be a next-generation Tunnel Boring Machine, is under construction.
News
Tesla Model Y Standard Long Range RWD launches in Europe
The update was announced by Tesla Europe & Middle East in a post on its official social media account on X.
Tesla has expanded the Model Y lineup in Europe with the introduction of the Standard Long Range RWD variant, which offers an impressive 657 km of WLTP range.
The update was announced by Tesla Europe & Middle East in a post on its official social media account on X.
Model Y Standard Long Range RWD Details
Tesla Europe & Middle East highlighted some of the Model Y Standard Long Range RWD’s most notable specs, from its 657 km of WLTP range to its 2,118 liters of cargo volume. More importantly, Tesla also noted that the newly released variant only consumes 12.7 kWh per 100 km, making it the most efficient Model Y to date.
The Model Y Standard provides a lower entry point for consumers who wish to enter the Tesla ecosystem at the lowest possible price. While the Model 3 Standard is still more affordable, some consumers might prefer the Model Y Standard due to its larger size and crossover form factor. The fact that the Model Y Standard is equipped with Tesla’s AI4 computer also makes it ready for FSD’s eventual rollout to the region.
Top Gear’s Model Y Standard review
Top Gear‘s recent review of the Tesla Model Y Standard highlighted some of the vehicle’s most notable features, such as its impressive real-world range, stellar infotainment system, and spacious interior. As per the publication, the Model Y Standard still retains a lot of what makes Tesla’s vehicles well-rounded, even if it’s been equipped with a simplified interior.
Top Gear compared the Model Y Standard to its rivals in the same segment. “The introduction of the Standard trim brings the Model Y in line with the entry price of most of its closest competition. In fact, it’s actually cheaper than a Peugeot e-3008 and costs £5k less than an entry-level Audi Q4 e-tron. It also makes the Ford Mustang Mach-E look a little short with its higher entry price and worse range,” the publication wrote.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s xAI bets $20B on Mississippi with 2GW AI data center project
The project is expected to create hundreds of permanent jobs, dramatically expand xAI’s computing capacity, and further cement the Mid-South as a growing hub for AI infrastructure.
Elon Musk’s xAI plans to pour more than $20 billion into a massive new data center campus in Southaven, Mississippi, marking the largest single economic development project in the state’s history.
The project is expected to create hundreds of permanent jobs, dramatically expand xAI’s computing capacity, and further cement the Mid-South as a growing hub for AI infrastructure.
xAI goes MACROHARDRR in Mississippi
xAI has acquired and is retrofitting an existing facility in Southaven to serve as a new data center, which will be known as “MACROHARDRR.” The site sits near a recently acquired power plant and close to one of xAI’s existing data centers in Tennessee, creating a regional cluster designed to support large-scale AI training and inference.
Once completed, the Southaven facility is expected to push the company’s total computing capacity to nearly 2 GW, placing it among the most powerful AI compute installations globally. The data center is scheduled to begin operations in February 2026.
Gov. Tate Reeves shared his optimism about the project in a press release. “This record-shattering $20 billion investment is an amazing start to what is sure to be another incredible year for economic development in Mississippi. Today, Elon Musk is bringing xAI to DeSoto County, a project that will transform the region and bring amazing opportunities to its residents for generations. This is the largest economic development project in Mississippi’s history,” he said.
xAI’s broader AI ambitions
To secure the investment, the Mississippi Development Authority approved xAI for its Data Center Incentive program, which provides sales and use tax exemptions on eligible computing hardware and software. The City of Southaven and DeSoto County are also supporting the project through fee-in-lieu agreements aimed at accelerating development timelines and reducing upfront costs.
Founded in 2023 by Elon Musk, xAI develops advanced artificial intelligence systems focused on large-scale reasoning and generative applications. Its flagship product, Grok, is integrated with the social media platform X, alongside a growing suite of APIs for image generation, voice, and autonomous agents, including offerings tailored for government use.
Elon Musk highlighted xAi’s growth and momentum in a comment about the matter. “xAI is scaling at an immeasurable pace — we are building our third massive data center in the greater Memphis area. MACROHARDRR pushes our Colossus training compute to ~2GW – by far the most powerful AI system on Earth. This is insane execution speed by xAI and the state of Mississippi. We are grateful to Governor Reeves for his support of building xAI at warp speed,” Musk said.
Tesla’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, says that something that was expected with version 14.3 of the company’s Full Self-Driving platform has already partially shipped with the current build of version 14.2.
Tesla and CEO Elon Musk have teased on several occasions that reasoning will be a big piece of future Full Self-Driving builds, helping bring forth the “sentient” narrative that the company has pushed for these more advanced FSD versions.
Back in October on the Q3 Earnings Call, Musk said:
“With reasoning, it’s literally going to think about which parking spot to pick. It’ll drop you off at the entrance of the store, then go find a parking spot. It’s going to spot empty spots much better than a human. It’s going to use reasoning to solve things.”
Musk said in the same month:
“By v14.3, your car will feel like it is sentient.”
Amazingly, Tesla Full Self-Driving v14.2.2.2, which is the most recent iteration released, is very close to this sentient feeling. However, there are more things that need to be improved, and logic appears to be in the future plans to help with decision-making in general, alongside other refinements and features.
On Thursday evening, Elluswamy revealed that some of the reasoning features have already been rolled out, confirming that it has been added to navigation route changes during construction, as well as with parking options.
He added that “more and more reasoning will ship in Q1.”
🚨 Tesla’s Ashok Elluswamy reveals Nav decisions when encountering construction and parking options contain “some elements of reasoning”
More uses of reasoning will be shipped later this quarter, a big tidbit of info as we wait v14.3 https://t.co/jty8llgsKM
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) January 9, 2026
Interestingly, parking improvements were hinted at being added in the initial rollout of v14.2 several months ago. These had not rolled out to vehicles quite yet, as they were listed under the future improvements portion of the release notes, but it appears things have already started to make their way to cars in a limited fashion.
Tesla Full Self-Driving v14.2 – Full Review, the Good and the Bad
As reasoning is more involved in more of the Full Self-Driving suite, it is likely we will see cars make better decisions in terms of routing and navigation, which is a big complaint of many owners (including me).
Additionally, the operation as a whole should be smoother and more comfortable to owners, which is hard to believe considering how good it is already. Nevertheless, there are absolutely improvements that need to be made before Tesla can introduce completely unsupervised FSD.
Tesla Model Y Standard Long Range RWD launches in Europe
Elon Musk’s xAI bets $20B on Mississippi with 2GW AI data center project
