Connect with us

News

Tesla Diner gets glass, weatherproofing, high-voltage lines and more

Credit: 247Tesla | YouTube

Published

on

Tesla’s Diner, Supercharger, and drive-in movie theater in California continues to make progress on construction, as a pair of videos this week show early glass installs, preparations for weatherproofing, and more.

In a pair of videos shared on Monday and Tuesday, YouTube channel 247Tesla shows drone footage of the West Hollywood Tesla Diner and Supercharger site showing some of the closest daytime shots of recent progress. Along with the site generally starting to look like a diner, crews were seen installing glass for counter-height windows on the first floor, as well as preparations for weatherproofing and the full installation of the second movie screen.

The video also shows concrete drying over the high-voltage lines that will supply the Supercharger lines, and a ton of stock for more conduit to be placed.

Credit: 247Tesla | YouTube

Credit: 247Tesla | YouTube

Credit: 247Tesla | YouTube

Credit: 247Tesla | YouTube

The latest updates follow a video from the channel over the weekend taking a few looks at the building’s Cybertruck-like polished steel exterior. In any case, construction of the Tesla Diner has come a long way since crews first broke ground on the site last September.

 

Located at 7001 Santa Monica Blvd. in Los Angeles, the diner is expected to be a 1950s-style restaurant with rock and roll music playing and waiters on roller skates, according to original ideas for the site posted on what was then called Twitter by Tesla CEO Elon Musk. The musings also included plans to feature the two movie screens, as can be seen in the videos, with highlight reels of some of the best movie scenes in history.

Originally destined for Santa Monica, the project was later moved to its current West Hollywood location, where it gained final permit approvals to begin construction last August.

Advertisement
-

You can watch the full Tesla Diner updates from this week below. You can also debate in the comments or in an email to me as to when you think the Tesla Diner will officially open.

Tesla Diner glass installation, weatherproofing, and high-voltage lines

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0iWZnTRDOw

Tesla Diner, Drive-in, and Supercharger: 4K Drone Construction Tour

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlk_oBiztgM

Tesla Diner—9 Months into Construction:

Advertisement
-

Tesla’s LA diner and Supercharger nears nine months of construction

What are your thoughts? Let me know at zach@teslarati.com, find me on X at @zacharyvisconti, or send us tips at tips@teslarati.com.

Zach is a renewable energy reporter who has been covering electric vehicles since 2020. He grew up in Fremont, California, and he currently lives in Colorado. His work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, KRON4 San Francisco, FOX31 Denver, InsideEVs, CleanTechnica, and many other publications. When he isn't covering Tesla or other EV companies, you can find him writing and performing music, drinking a good cup of coffee, or hanging out with his cats, Banks and Freddie. Reach out at zach@teslarati.com, find him on X at @zacharyvisconti, or send us tips at tips@teslarati.com.

Advertisement
Comments

Elon Musk

The Boring Company’s latest Tesla tunnel truck mod “fits like a glove”

The Boring Company has modified a Tesla powered tunnel truck to carry freight containers underground.

Published

on

By

the-boring-company-tesla-robotaxi

The Boring Company has found a second job for the Tesla hardware it already runs underground. In a post on X, Elon Musk’s tunneling company showed its latest Prufrock Liner Truck modified to carry a standard 20 foot shipping container. “Using TBC tunnels to transport freight,” the company wrote. “The latest Prufrock Liner Truck (using Tesla Model 3 batteries and drive units) has been modified to carry a standard 20′ shipping container. Fits like a glove!”

The photo shows a red container sitting on a long, low white chassis parked outside, with drive hardware visible at one end. The Boring Company did not say where or when freight hauling would start, which customers it has in mind, or how many trucks it is converting.

Advertisement
-

Until now, the liner trucks have hauled concrete. Teslarati reported in August on Liner Truck 3, which uses Model 3 battery packs and drive units to move more than 22,000 pounds of precast tunnel segments to the boring machine. It has 28 miles of range, tops out at 12 mph, and is piloted remotely from the company’s operations center in Texas. The freight version appears to be the same platform with a different bed, and The Boring Company has not said whether it will also be remotely piloted.

Freight has been on the company’s menu for years. When TBC updated its product lineup in 2021, its freight tunnel was described as sized to fit a standard shipping container, “barely.” The company later used the idea at Tesla’s own factory, where Prufrock 3 dug a tunnel to Giga Texas that now moves finished Cybertrucks away from the production line.

The Boring Company closed a $3 billion Series D in September at a $23 billion valuation, and Teslarati has covered how that money is tied to a UAE tunneling push and a faster Nashville build. In Nashville, Prufrock MB1 and MB2 are mining at the same time, and a third machine is expected to launch in late October. Each machine needs a steady supply of liner trucks, so any design that works for segments and containers alike gives the company more use out of the same Tesla parts.

The Vegas Loop remains the only Boring Company system open to the public, and it moves passengers in Tesla vehicles. A freight service would be a separate product, and the post gave no indication that one is close to launch. For now, it is a truck, a container and a short caption saying they fit together.

Continue Reading

Elon Musk

Elon Musk will give ‘every kid in America’ a SpaceX share in 2027

Published

on

Credit: Grok Imagine

Elon Musk said he is planning to give “every one of his SpaceX shares to every kid in America” in 2027, stating that “this will be the first of many.”

SpaceX went public earlier this year, and its stock price has been relatively stable since leveling off shortly after its IPO. Based on its current price, it’s a gift of just over $10 billion to children across the United States.

It appears to be closely related to President Donald Trump’s bank accounts for children, which were set up earlier this year as Trump Accounts.

Just hours earlier, Anthropic had announced the establishment of its Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, “a new wholly-owned entity dedicated entirely to public benefit.” Musk responded by stating he recommended “giving the shares directly to the public,” and that he would be doing it that way.

Just a little bit later, Musk said children across the U.S. would be getting a share from him:

Advertisement
-

There are roughly 70 million children, meaning someone under the age of 18, in the United States, according to the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. Musk’s ownership of SpaceX stock shows he has around 849 million Class A shares of SpaceX stock, according to filings with the SEC.

Continue Reading

Elon Musk

Elon Musk reveals why Boring Co’s biggest East Coast project never happened

Published

on

(Credit: The Boring Company)

Elon Musk revealed in a post on X that “Permits were impossible to get,” explaining the fate of The Boring Company’s most ambitious East Coast proposal.

The comment responded to a query about what became of his July 20, 2017 announcement that he had “just received verbal govt approval” for an underground Hyperloop connecting New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., capable of carrying passengers from the Big Apple to the Nation’s Capital in just 29 minutes.

The Boring Company receives verbal ‘approval’ to build NY to DC Hyperloop tunnel

The 2017 post, which envisioned city-center stations and multiple elevators in each city, sparked immediate scrutiny. Local and state officials in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and D.C. said they had no knowledge of any approval. A White House spokesperson confirmed only “promising conversations” about the transformative infrastructure.

Musk clarified shortly after that there was “still a lot of work” to do for formal approvals.

Limited progress followed, as Maryland Governor Larry Hogan’s administration issued a conditional utility permit and supported work near Fort Meade. In 2018, Washington, D.C., granted a preliminary permit for site preparation and excavation on a vacant lot at 53 New York Ave. NE in the NoMa neighborhood, which The Boring Company said could become a station.

A draft environmental assessment for a D.C.-Baltimore segment was released in 2019. Yet, by April 2021, the company had removed the project from its website, and the Federal Highway Administration reported receiving no indication of further interest. Communication with Maryland officials had ceased.

The full corridor would have required coordination among the District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, the Federal Highway Administration, the Army Corps of Engineers, the National Park Service, and other agencies.

Environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act, utility clearances, and approvals for novel infrastructure added to the overall complexity of the project and its approval.

Speculation on the permitting barriers centers around a few factors, but a multi-state, multi-level route involving unproven high-speed vacuum-tube technology inherently triggers exhaustive safety, environmental, and engineering reviews that can stretch for years, even for conventional projects.

Advertisement
-

There are also other elements, of course, like officials who may face political exposure if a privately funded, untested system encountered anything such as cost overruns, delays, or safety issues. On the outset of this project, there were limited things such as engineering plans or demonstrated technology maturity, which also added to the potential skepticism.

The East Coast vision for Boring Co., once framed as a privately funded revolution that could reshape Northeast travel, quietly ended without construction of the promised network. Musk’s recent statement frames the outcome as a regulatory impasse, unfortunate but not unexpected.

Continue Reading