Tesla CEO Elon Musk wants to build an underground network of tunnels under the city of Los Angeles that would serve as an end to traffic congestion.
Speaking at the Ted (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference the billionaire innovator also said he planned fully autonomous journeys across the US in the near future.
In a wide-ranging conversation with Ted curator Chris Anderson, the founder of Tesla and Space X, said he found being stuck in traffic as “soul-destroying” and was inspired by it to consider a tunnel based system that would as roads of the future.
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Musk also showed a concept video of the multi-layered tunnel system that would rest under the city and work in collaboration with the existing road networks. The video showed cars being carried to the underground network using an autonomous trolley-like platform.
He is now working on finding ways to reduce cost of boring and speed up the process of building tunnels. “We have a pet snail called Gary, and Gary is capable of moving 14 times faster than a tunnel boring machine – so the ambition is to beat Gary,” he added.
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The firm Musk set up to oversee the project – The Boring Company – took up less than 3% of his time, he said, and it was run by interns and part-timers.
“From a parking lot in California, cross-country to New York or from Seattle to Florida, these cars should be able to go anywhere on the highway system,” he said. The visionary now promises a fully autonomous journey across the US by the end of the year.
This article originally appeared on BBC.
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