Connect with us

News

Elon Musk’s Boring Company introduces updated lineup of tunneling products

(Credit: Boring Company)

Published

on

Elon Musk’s Boring Company has announced its updated lineup of tunneling products and services. With its expanded list of offerings, The Boring Company could extend its reach beyond mass transportation.

As could be seen in the tunneling startup’s official website, The Boring Company now offers a total of five different tunnels for its clients. The first of these is the Loop, which has been built in the Las Vegas Convention Center. The Boring Company’s Loop tunnels are built for mass transportation, and they are capable of fitting vehicles like the Tesla Model 3 and Model X.

Credit: CNBC Television/YouTube

Clients that would opt-in for the Loop would receive a tunnel that is 12 feet in diameter and complete with a drive surface, LED lighting, emergency backup lighting, CCTV video system, secure wireless communication, blue light stations, passenger cell phone service, fire safety system, and ventilation systems. Project engineering, permits, and environmental reviews are included with every Loop project.

Apart from the Loop, The Boring Company also offers Utility tunnels, which could support access to multiple utilities without disrupting the surface. This was something that Elon Musk initially mentioned back in 2018 during a fireside chat in Los Angeles. During his talk, Musk noted that The Boring Company is open to digging tunnels for water transport, electrical, and even sewage. “We’re not going to turn our noses up at sewage tunnels. We’re happy to do that too,” Musk said.

The Boring Company’s Utility tunnels are 12 feet in diameter and are equipped with a flat maintenance surface, LED lighting, and a CCTV video system. Utility tunnel contracts also include project engineering, environmental review, and permitting.

The tunneling startup’s updated product page includes Freight tunnels as well, which can fit a standard shipping container. Using Boring Company tunnels for logistics purposes has been mentioned by Elon Musk in the past when he noted that Tesla is looking to build an underground system that connects the Fremont Factory to the EV maker’s seat factory on Page Avenue. According to Musk, such a system could improve Tesla’s vehicle production output.

Credit: Mark Damon/Las Vegas News Bureau

Freight tunnels are 12 feet in diameter and are equipped with a flat maintenance surface, LED lighting, and a CCTV video setup. Project engineering, environmental review, and permitting are also included with every Freight tunnel contract.

The Boring Company’s tunnels could also be used for pedestrian use. As per the tunneling startup’s website, The Boring Company’s Pedestrian tunnels provide a safe way for people and cyclists to avoid road traffic on the surface. Lengths for Pedestrian tunnels range from 100 feet to 2,500 feet, and each comes with a flat walk/ride surface, LED lighting, emergency backup lighting, CCTV video system, cell phone service, fire safety system, and a ventilation system. Project engineering, environmental review, and permitting, are also included with every Pedestrian tunnel contract.

Advertisement
-

Lastly, the tunneling startup is also offering Bare tunnels for clients. As the name suggests, Bare tunnels are a blank slate for any project that clients would like to pursue. Bare tunnels are 12 feet in diameter and include project engineering, environmental review, and permitting.

The Teslarati team would appreciate hearing from you. If you have any tips, email us at tips@teslarati.com or reach out to me at maria@teslarati.com.

Maria--aka "M"-- is an experienced writer and book editor. She's written about several topics including health, tech, and politics. As a book editor, she's worked with authors who write Sci-Fi, Romance, and Dark Fantasy. M loves hearing from TESLARATI readers. If you have any tips or article ideas, contact her at maria@teslarati.com or via X, @Writer_01001101.

Advertisement
Comments

News

Tesla Roadster event gets delayed due to unfavorable weather

Published

on

Credit: Tesla

Tesla is delaying its event for the Roadster, moving it from this Thursday, October 1, to Thursday, October 15, due to unfavorable weather.

The company has said it has been tracking the weather for this Thursday closely with local meteorologists, and because the event can only be held outside, Tesla is making the call to delay it:

“We’ve been tracking the weather closely with local meteorologists, but given the severe conditions predicted & because this event can only be held outdoors, we’ve made the difficult decision to reschedule. New date is October 15. Additional details to follow.”

We are sure that this is bringing back PTSD for some Tesla fans, and we know it is not ideal, but this also reveals some things about the event. Tesla said that this can only be held outdoors, meaning it bodes well for the rumors that the vehicle could potentially hover.

Some believe that this was essentially confirmed by the FAA airspace restriction they were granted, but this could have been for a drone show or to keep drones from spying on the event.

Tesla Roadster is available for order once again following brief hold

The Roadster event has been long-awaited, and it is unfortunate that the weather is going to keep us all waiting a little bit longer.

The Tesla Roadster will be unveiled in Waco, Texas.

Continue Reading

Elon Musk

SpaceX turned a heralding moment for Starship into its greatest

Starship reached orbit despite losing an engine, deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites on Flight 14.

Published

on

By

SpaceX’s Starship reached orbit for the first time on Monday, and for a few nail-biting minutes it looked like it wouldn’t. During ascent on Flight 14, one of Ship 41’s six Raptor engines shut down early, and SpaceX’s livestream host Dan Huot told viewers the team had decided not to commit to orbit. Minutes later, after what Huot described as a lot of conversation in the control room, the final poll came back in favor, and a roughly 19 second burn of a single Raptor pushed the ship into orbit about 170 miles up.

The reversal matters because SpaceX had written the exit ramp into the mission plan. The company said it would only fire the orbital insertion burn if flight controllers confirmed enough backup hardware remained for the deorbit burn, a condition Teslarati laid out ahead of the flight. Losing an engine was exactly the scenario that rule was built for.

Pressing forward fits Elon Musk’s history. Falcon 1 failed three straight times before its fourth launch reached orbit in 2008, with SpaceX nearly out of money, and Starship was developed by flying prototypes until they broke. What changed this year SpaceX going public, and with $SPCX sliding below its IPO price in July when Flight 13 slipped, the short interest climbed significantly, as Teslarati reported at the time. A Starship potentially lost today with revenue generating next-gen Starlink satellites aboard would have landed directly on shareholders.

That pressure showed up after orbit. SpaceX cut a flight planned to last nearly 10 hours to about three, moving splashdown from west of Chile to the North Pacific near Hawaii. SpaceX gave no reason, though Musk said this month the company was being extremely cautious about debris risk. The single Raptor for deorbit worked, and Ship 41 completed its flip and landing burn before breaking apart in the water, an outcome SpaceX expected. Musk has structured SpaceX’s governance to shield long term bets from market pressure.

The payload is the bigger business story. Musk posted that all 26 Starlink V3 satellites deployed and are “operating nominally.” Each V3 is rated for about 1 Tbps of downlink and 160 Gbps of uplink, so this single launch adds roughly 26 Tbps, about 10 times what a Falcon 9 load of V2 Mini satellites adds. The V3 is too large for Falcon 9, making Starship the only vehicle that can build out the planned 100,000 satellite constellation, at up to 60 per flight once it reaches routine service. Unlike the 20 V3 units on Flight 13, which reentered on a suborbital path, these will raise their orbits and could begin serving customers within weeks and bring in hundreds of millions of additional dollars in projected Starlink revenue.

SpaceX has already begun winding down Falcon 9 Starlink launches from Florida in favor of Starship. Reported targets put Flight 15 as early as October 19, leaving about three weeks to diagnose Monday’s engine shutdown before the next orbital attempt.

Continue Reading

News

Tesla Cybercab fleet doubles to well over 100 units

Published

on

(Credit: Teslarati)

Tesla quietly doubled the size of its Cybercab fleet within the Robotaxi program in Austin, Texas, over the weekend to well over 100 units.

The move not only establishes more of the steering-wheel-less and pedal-less vehicles within the ride-sharing fleet Tesla has been operating for a year, but it also solidifies a more robust Robotaxi fleet as a whole.

Riders started receiving notifications from the Robotaxi app that stated: “Cybercab fleet has doubled: more rides available.”

Tesla first launched rides in the Cybercab in early September, although the Robotaxi fleet has been active for over a year, as rides began last Summer. Cybercab is truly Tesla’s most crucial vehicle release yet, as it is the first car any company has built that is geared toward full-fledged and end-to-end autonomy, never needing human intervention for anything.

Only available in Austin at the current time, Cybercab has two seats and has been spotted testing around various U.S. states and regions; Tesla plans to deploy the Cybercab in various U.S. cities in the coming months as a best-case scenario.

Tesla Cybercab gets initial tie-in to localized, in-house cathode plant

The availability of the Cybercab has doubled from just 58 units last Monday to 125 the following Friday. Marking a substantial increase in Cybercab availability, the additional ride-sharing units are more than welcome, as wait times for Cybercabs, especially, were quite high.

The dramatic increase is a sign that demand for Robotaxi is growing and Tesla is feeling more confident that its driverless ride-hailing suite, especially its Full Self-Driving software, is able to handle any traffic situation without explicit direction or supervision from a human being.

Continue Reading