News
Elon Musk’s Boring Company announces tunnel site tours for LA County students
As the Boring Company prepares to break ground for its Chicago-O’Hare high-speed transport project, the Elon Musk-founded startup announced that it would be offering tours of its tunnel site in Hawthorne, CA, to students in LA County. The tours, which could accommodate up to 30 students at a time, could be booked by contacting the Boring Company through email.
The Boring Company’s announcement of the tunnel tours was posted on the company’s official Twitter page on Tuesday. The tunneling startup noted that tours could be booked by interested faculty, or students with a faculty sponsor.
We are hosting student tours of the Hawthorne tunnel site for schools in LA County! Each tour can accommodate up to 30 students. Interested faculty (or students with a faculty sponsor!) can reach out to studenttours@boringcompany.com
— The Boring Company (@boringcompany) August 14, 2018
Offering tours for students is a clever way for the Boring Company to introduce its underground transportation concept to a new generation of commuters. The Boring Company’s high-speed tunnels, after all, have been met with reservations from parties not comfortable with the startup’s ideas. Such reservations became prevalent back in January, when the Boring Company’s representatives presented the tunneling startup’s plans to members of the Culver City local government. Some officials, such as city council member Meghan Sahli-Wells, noted during the presentation that while the company’s tunnels were compelling, the idea was “half-baked from a public perspective.”
The Boring Company’s 2.7-mile Hawthorne project has been progressing well over the past few months. Back in May, Elon Musk posted an update on his personal Instagram page announcing that the test tunnel was nearly complete, and that the project was just pending final regulatory approvals. As soon as these are complete, Musk stated that the Boring Company would start offering “free demo rides” to the public. The tunneling startup showed more signs that the Hawthorne tunnel was nearing completion last month as well, at one point showcasing a section of the tunnel fitted with multicolored lighting.
The 2.7-mile Hawthorne tunnel is a portion of the company’s 6.5-mile proof-of-concept tunnel for the LA area, which is planned to run from northeast Westchester to Brentwood, one of the most traffic-congested sections in West Los Angeles. Ultimately, the Boring Company appears to be setting the stage for its proof-of-concept tunnel, as evidenced by a recent purchase of land in West LA, which would likely become a Loop station in the future. Loop stations are small landing zones and exits where passengers can access the Boring Company’s underground tunnel system.
Traveling through the Boring Company’s tunnels would be done through the use of electric-powered pods that can hold up to 16 passengers at a time. The all-electric pods are set to be manufactured by Tesla, and are capable of reaching speeds of up to 150 mph, thanks to a design that uses eight wheels fitted on the sides of the vehicle. According to the Boring Company, the Loop system, at least in its initial run, would prioritize commuters who do not have their own vehicles.
The Boring Company might be a tunneling startup seemingly founded by Elon Musk on a whim, but the company has grown significantly since it was founded back in December 2016. Earlier this year, an SEC filing revealed that the Boring Company raised $113 million in a funding round, $100 million of which was invested by Musk himself. After winning the bid for the estimated ~$1 billion downtown Chicago-O’Hare project, Berenberg analyst Alexander Haissl also noted that the tunneling startup could be worth as much as $16 billion in the future.
The Tesla Semi is entering a new Pilot Program with Paper Transport, LLC (PTI), a Wisconsin-based transportation provider. The company will test the Semi’s Long Range configuration through “dedicated operations within the Chicago market.”
Chicago presents an interesting challenge for the Semi, as it will be a colder-weather climate that will test the Semi’s ability to operate in lower temperatures and in potentially large accumulations of snow. This is something Tesla has been testing with the Semi in Alaska and even in Northern California during the colder months, but Chicago will present a truly tough midwestern winter.
Tesla Semi spotted on journey home after winter performance testing
PTI says it is using the Semi to evaluate its strategy of reducing transportation emissions while maintaining performance, reliability, and cost efficiency. These are major arguments for the Semi being introduced into new fleets.
CEO of PTI Tyler Ellison said:
“PTI has been a leader in sustainable transportation solutions for over 15 years. We take a consultative approach to helping customers identify and implement the right transportation solution for their network. Our partnership with Tesla expands our portfolio alongside renewable natural gas and intermodal, giving customers more ways to reduce Scope 3 emissions without compromising service or economics.”
PTI is far from the first company to adopt the Semi within a fleet, as Tesla entered strategic agreements with PepsiCo. and its subsidiary Frito-Lay for a Pilot Program that extended throughout the California region.
Tesla has let companies like those utilize the Semi to determine whether it would be suitable for their operations. Additionally, Tesla gets valuable information regarding the Semi’s performance, knowing what to improve and what is ideal for companies that will utilize the all-electric truck for regional and nationwide logistics.
PTI plans to utilize the Long Range configuration, which is priced at $290,000 and features a range of approximately 500 miles, a three-motor powertrain, up to 800 kW of drive power, and consumption of just 1.7 kWh per mile.
Tesla Semi pricing revealed after company uncovers trim levels
VP of Maintenance at PTI, Bryan Ellen, added:
“We are excited to partner with Tesla, leveraging their ever-evolving technology. We are bullish in our estimation of the parallels available between our dedicated model and the efficiency of their fully electric Class 8 tractor. We anticipate a growing synergy between our businesses as we work to facilitate this sustainable solution for our customers.”
PTI has logged more than 87 million miles using sources like compressed and renewable gas, but now is looking to take it a step further with fully electric operations.
Tesla revealed on Monday that it is building a new autonomous vehicle at Gigafactory Texas, its plant just outside of the City of Austin. This particular vehicle will be geared toward those who are in need of a wheelchair-accessible car that would require no human driver for operation.
According to a new report from Wired, Tesla’s Senior Policy Advisor, India Herdman, told members of the Washington D.C. City Council on Monday:
“We are in development for a purpose-built, wheelchair-accessible autonomous vehicle. We know that paratransit can be very difficult, and people who are confined to wheelchairs permanently should still be able to move around freely, so that is an active product being built by Tesla in Texas.”
This builds upon what CEO Elon Musk said last year on X, which confirmed the company was working on accessible rides within its Robotaxi platform, which currently is confined to the Model Y.
Absolutely
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 19, 2025
Tesla is also developing the Cybercab, which started employee rides last week. However, this vehicle is not necessarily geared toward wheelchair accessibility.
That leaves a major gap in the autonomous ride-sharing program that Tesla is attempting to build; the company has been pretty clear that it does not want to complicate its manufacturing lines by bringing in a wide array of body styles.
However, it seems necessary to have something larger that could help transport people to appointments when they cannot drive. For wheelchair accessibility, the Robovan, which was unveiled at the “We, Robot” event in October 2024, seems to be the most ideal solution:
Herdman did not indicate whether she was referring to the Robovan or if Tesla is building yet another body style that is geared toward full autonomy but also caters to the handicapped.
Tesla might need to develop something specifically for the handicapped in order to align with the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prevents discrimination against people with disabilities in transportation services. Uber was hit with a lawsuit late last year for “refusing to reasonably modify its policies, practices, or procedures where necessary to avoid discriminating against riders with disabilities.”
Tesla would obviously like to avoid this.
It will be interesting to see what Tesla will do with this project, and whether it will introduce something new to the market or just continue with the Robovan.
Tesla weirdly confirmed that its steering wheel-less and pedal-less Cybercab vehicle is now in the process of giving employees rides, a huge milestone for the vehicle program.
But the entire thing was super strange. On Friday, Tesla released a video stating that there was “Cool news from Giga Texas” and that employees were now taking rides in Cybercabs that have no manual controls. The units seen on public roads are engineering vehicles that have manual controls inside, a necessity as Tesla moved through the testing phase.
However, Tesla removed the video and reposted it shortly after with a more vague title. It seems like the employee rides are still going, but the video was adjusted slightly. The initial upload showed employees doing things like watching movies and adjusting the climate, but these snippets were removed in the second upload.
Cool news from Giga Texas pic.twitter.com/gvbG456Tzw
— Tesla Robotaxi (@robotaxi) July 11, 2026
Both images below were uploaded with the first video, but were removed after Tesla re-uploaded the announcement. These are not available in the second upload
Credit: Tesla
Credit: Tesla
Nevertheless, the announcement from Tesla is that the Cybercab is operating with employees inside who can control the vehicle’s audio, video, climate, and destination settings through their smartphone app.
Tesla has already been testing Cybercab engineering units, but last month, it was able to self-certify for SAE Level 4, which would enable unsupervised self-driving in Texas. The company is moving toward that, and the plans have always been to launch Cybercab rides this year.
The Cybercab is potentially looked at as the next generation of Tesla’s mobility leg. For the past 15 years, the company has been known as somewhat of an automaker, among many other things. However, these passenger vehicles that Tesla has manufactured are now moving into a new realm, as they will eventually drive themselves with no supervision thanks to the Full Self-Driving suite.
The Cybercab is just the next step of that: a true vehicle developed for the sole purpose of ride-hailing. It has no human controls, it has only two seats, and it will get passengers from Point A to Point B with no awkward driver, no need for manual inputs, and with no stress.
Tesla is moving forward with other developments related to the Cybercab project as well. However, the big announcement will come when Tesla finally announces that it is launching Cybercab rides to the general public, something that it plans to launch either late this year or early 2027.
Tesla Semi enters new Pilot Program with interesting challenge
Tesla is building a wheelchair-accessible Robotaxi
