All vikisThe Boring Company Tunnels
Elon Musk said on Dec 17, 2016 he would build a tunnel boring machine to beat traffic. As of Nov 9, 2026 his Boring Company runs one system, the Vegas Loop, with 13 active stations and more than 4 million riders, while its Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington plans stopped.
As of Nov 9, 2026, The Boring Company carries passengers in one city: the Vegas Loop in Las Vegas, which its map lists with 13 active stations, from the convention center to the Strip resorts and curbside drop-offs at both airport terminals, and which the company says has carried more than 4 million passengers. It is a tunnel network driven by Tesla cars, not the 130 mph "electric skate" system Musk described when he started the company. His first word on it was a post on Dec 17, 2016, "Traffic is driving me nuts", saying he would build a tunnel boring machine "and just start digging". In the clip from his Apr 2017 TED interview, he shows the first visualization: cars lowered on an elevator onto a skate built for "200 kilometers an hour", so "you should be able to get from, say, Westwood to LAX in six minutes".
Status: Changed. Last checked: Nov 9, 2026.
What he announced
Two promises carried the idea. The first was speed: an electric skate or, later, a car on retractable guide wheels, moving through a "3D network of tunnels" at 130 to 150 mph, entered from an elevator the size of two parking spaces. At the Dec 18, 2018 unveiling of his 1.14-mile test tunnel in Hawthorne, California, Musk said the main tunnels would allow up to 150 mph and floated dedicated vehicles for pedestrians and cyclists at "about $1 a ride" (TechCrunch). Reporters rode at about 44 mph that night.
The second was cost. In the TED interview he puts the Los Angeles subway extension at "roughly a billion dollars a mile" and says "we need to have at least a tenfold improvement in the cost per mile of tunneling", from a tunnel half as wide, a machine that bores and reinforces at once, and more power. The Hawthorne tunnel cost about $10 million including its lighting, ventilation and track, by the company's figure (TechCrunch).
The promises
| Promised | When he said it | What happened |
|---|---|---|
| A boring machine "to just start digging" | Dec 17, 2016, post on X | Done. The company builds its own Prufrock machines (Boring Company). |
| 130 mph skates, Westwood to LAX in six minutes | Apr 2017, TED | No Los Angeles Loop exists. Vegas Loop uses Tesla cars, with rides of 2 to 8 minutes. |
| Main tunnels up to 150 mph | Dec 18, 2018, Hawthorne | No 150 mph service runs. The test ride was about 44 mph. |
| About $1 a ride for shared vehicles | Dec 18, 2018 | Vegas Loop listed $4.25 Westgate to Resorts World, $12 to the airport (Dec 2025). |
| A tenfold cut in cost per mile | Apr 2017, TED | The 1.7-mile LVCC Loop cost about $47 million, fixed price. |
| Baltimore to Washington Loop (2017), Dodger Stadium "Dugout Loop" (2018), Chicago O'Hare express (2018) | Announced 2017 and 2018 | Removed from the company's website by Apr 2021; none broke ground (Al Jazeera, via Bloomberg). |
What happened since
The convention center loop, 2021. The first passenger system, the Las Vegas Convention Center Loop, opened in April 2021: three stations on 1.7 miles of tunnel, built in about a year for about $47 million, cutting a 45-minute walk across the campus to about two minutes. The company says it has shown peak capacity of more than 4,500 passengers an hour and 32,000 a day, and in 2024 it grew to 2.1 miles and five stations (Boring Company).
Projects that stopped. Bloomberg reported in Apr 2021, in a story carried by Al Jazeera, that the Baltimore-to-Washington Loop and the Dugout Loop had been removed from the company's website while still in environmental review, and that the Chicago O'Hare tunnel had sputtered after its champion, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, said in 2018 he would not run again. The company did not answer Bloomberg's questions. None of the three has been revived on the company's project list (read Nov 9, 2026).
The Vegas Loop grows, 2025 to 2026. Westgate's station opened on Jan 22, 2025; by Dec 2025 the network had over 10 miles of tunnel dug, about 4 of them in use, and limited rides to Harry Reid International Airport began, dropping riders at the departures curb of Terminals 1 and 3 (Las Vegas Review-Journal). Encore, Fontainebleau and Sahara stations followed, and Clark County approved 19 more stations for an entitled network of 123 (Boring Company), on 68 approved miles of tunnel (Boring Company). In its Sep 9, 2026 funding post, the company still described its dedicated Airport Connector tunnels only as opening "soon".
Regulators. In Sep 2025 Nevada's Bureau of Water Pollution Control accused the company of nearly 800 violations of a 2022 settlement, mostly 689 missed inspections, with a proposed penalty of $242,800; the company is disputing it, a state spokesperson told ProPublica (Oct 10, 2025).
Money and new cities, 2026. On Sep 9, 2026 the company announced a $3 billion Series D at a $23 billion valuation, led by the United Arab Emirates and affiliated entities. In Nashville, tunneling on the Music City Loop began on Feb 25, 2026, the day the state permit came, as the company's first hard-rock project; its Oct 1, 2026 update says two machines are mining and it is pushing for four by year's end. The US Department of Transportation calls it a $200 million, privately funded project expected to open in spring 2027, and the company's project page gives no date or fare. In Dubai, a pilot of 6.4 km and four stations from DIFC to Dubai Mall is under contract with construction planned for late 2026 (Boring Company).
Next in Las Vegas. The twin-tunnel University Center Loop, about two miles under Paradise Road from Westgate to a company site near UNLV with new stations at 4744 Paradise, Virgin Hotels and the former Gordon Biersch site, is set to open before the Formula One Las Vegas Grand Prix on Nov 19 to 21, 2026, the convention authority's chief Steve Hill told the Review-Journal on Oct 22, 2026. Hill added that the planned airport station at Terminal 1 sits partly on land the FAA controls and was waiting on an FAA environmental review, which he called "very close to finalizing".
Why "changed": the tunnels and stations are real and in use, but as a car-in-tunnel service in one city, not the high-speed skate network for Los Angeles and the East Coast he first described, and at fares several times the $1 he floated. Hyperloop, which Musk called the intercity sequel to the Loop in 2018, is a separate story.
We think
We think the University Center Loop opens with riders before the Las Vegas Grand Prix weekend of Nov 19, 2026, but the dedicated Airport Connector tunnel does not carry passengers before the end of Mar 2027. The Paradise stations had reached permit inspections by Oct 22, 2026, while the airport station at Terminal 1 was still waiting on an FAA environmental review and has no published date.
Confidence: Likely. Check by: Mar 2027.
We expect Nashville's Music City Loop to miss the spring 2027 opening the Transportation Department gave, carrying its first paying riders in the second half of 2027 or later. As of Oct 1, 2026 only two boring machines were in hard rock on a route of almost 25 miles, and the company itself has published no opening date.
Confidence: Possible. Check by: Jun 2027.
Sources
- Post: "Traffic is driving me nuts", Elon Musk on X, Dec 17, 2016
- Elon Musk: The future we're building -- and boring, TED on YouTube, May 3, 2017
- Elon Musk's vision for transport is a 3D network of tunnels for autonomous electric vehicles, TechCrunch, Dec 18, 2018
- Tesla's Los Angeles and Maryland tunnels run into red tape, Al Jazeera (Bloomberg), Apr 15, 2021
- Las Vegas Convention Center Loop, The Boring Company, read Nov 9, 2026
- Vegas Loop, The Boring Company, read Nov 9, 2026
- Tunnels, The Boring Company, read Nov 9, 2026
- The Boring Company, The Boring Company, read Nov 9, 2026
- Announcing our $3B Series D, The Boring Company, Sep 9, 2026
- Music City Loop, The Boring Company, read Nov 9, 2026
- Music City Loop Blog, October 1, 2026, The Boring Company, Oct 1, 2026
- Secretary Duffy tours Nashville's Music City Loop project, US Department of Transportation, read Nov 9, 2026
- Boring Co. Vegas Loop begins Reid airport rides, Las Vegas Review-Journal, Dec 30, 2025
- Vegas Loop Paradise extension still set to open for Grand Prix, Las Vegas Review-Journal, Oct 22, 2026
- Elon Musk's Boring Co. Accused of Nearly 800 Environmental Violations on Las Vegas Project, ProPublica, Oct 10, 2025
Moments
Elon Musk: The future we're building -- and boring | TED
TED
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