Elon Musk's Boring Company Ghosts Cities Across America (WSJ)

[dalton99a]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-boring-company-tunnel-traffic-11669658396
https://archive.ph/NnHUA

Elon Musk’s Boring Company Ghosts Cities Across America
The tunnel venture has repeatedly teased local officials with a pledge to ‘solve soul-destroying traffic,’ only to back out
By Ted Mann and Julie Bykowicz
Nov. 28, 2022 1:03 pm ET

ONTARIO, Calif. — The unsolicited proposal from Elon Musk’s tunnel-building venture arrived in January 2020. To the local transportation authority, it felt like finding Willy Wonka’s golden ticket.

Officials had started planning for a street-level rail connection between booming Ontario International Airport and a commuter train station 4 miles away, with an estimated cost north of $1 billion. For just $45 million, Mr. Musk’s Boring Co. offered to instead build an underground tunnel through which travelers could zip back and forth in autonomous electric vehicles.

Dazzled by Boring’s boasts that it had revolutionized tunneling, and the cachet of working with the billionaire head of EV maker Tesla Inc., the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority dumped plans for a traditional light rail and embraced the futuristic tunnel.

When it came time to formalize the partnership and get to work, Boring itself went underground — just as it has done in Maryland, Chicago and Los Angeles. Boring didn’t submit a bid for Ontario by the January 2022 deadline.

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The Boring Company's only product to date - a $500 flamethrower:

[Carlitos Brigante]

1. A flamethrower??! Why can't you plebes recognize this man's genius? Traffic

is getting on your nerves? Flame your way through it!

[Kennah]

2. Seems like a $44 billion flamethrower

[yankee87]

3. Unreal

Seems more and more like Musk is all hat with no cattle. Looking like he severely underperforms. Really haven’t followed him till recently, was his whole persona based on the electric car?

[Carlitos Brigante]

4. Well, based on buying an already existing EV company. Owning a

rocket company. And basically promoting the shit out of himself, while promising all kinds of bullshit that never comes to pass.

But let's not forget that the same press that's now reporting every moronic utterance or move on his part. We're a lot of the same people who promoted this bullshit "altruistic genius inventor" angle without question. I've watched too many interviews where the supposed journalist just sits there with a stupid ass smile on their face and laughing at his godawful "jokes", without questioning one single thing he says.

[dalton99a]

5. +1. Like Trump, Musk is a genius at marketing himself

and pushing his bullshit narrative onto the gullible and the ignorant

[dchill]

7. In my experience and estimation...

... there's no such thing as a criminal genius. He's just a criminal. And bullshit is just bullshit, as we are all witnessing.

[modrepub]

16. To Be Fair

I think the only real long-term thing to come out of Tesla will be its charging stations. From what I hear, those stations appear to work flawlessly (for Tesla vehicles). I've only heard other EV owners lament how poorly other charging sites (don't always) work.

As other more experienced car makers enter the EV market, I suspect Tesla will be more on its heals. Tesla's quality control has always been an issue. They are learning but established car manufacturers have much more experience. Musk's shenanigans will only alienate his potential customer base and hurt him going forward.

My personal opinion is Musk is trying to curry favors from the Republican side of the aisle in hopes they can use the anti woke movement to secure his market share or better yet get access to billions of dollars in government support. That's the true aim of big business; use government regulation to hurt their competition and secure a portion of government spending for themselves.

[yankee87]

17. More EVs

I agree with you as more established car makers enter the EV market, Tesla is going to be in a free fall. I guess the marketing of the cult of Elon helped get EVs into the mainstream. Also, I read about how there is a whole script when he arrives at SpaceX. We’ll see how this all shakes out.

[Hekate]

6. Musk is a genuine *hole. Real people live in Ontario, and he screwed them over for nothing.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

8. "Boring's only tunnel open to the public is a 1.6-mile "loop experience" under the Las Vegas Convent

Boring’s only tunnel open to the public is a 1.6-mile “loop experience” under the Las Vegas Convention Center. There, Teslas with hired drivers ferry convention-goers through neon-lit white tunnels at speeds of about 30 miles an hour.

[tishaLA]

9. I remember when they teased Los Angeles with this

and the prospect of mitigating traffic is like manna from heaven here so everyone was very excited despite knowing how much it's cost to build the subway system because of earthquakes, etc.

I swear that a large, large portion of everything he does is merely to get attention--and this is a prime example of it.

[dalton99a]

18. +1. Musk is just playing games to get free publicity.

He doesn't give a shit about America or America's problems.

Public officials who think he's an altruistic genius are stupid or corrupt.

[Warpy]

11. Yeah, he wanted to build hyperloops

modeled on pneumatic tube systems, that would shoot capsules full of people at high speed around the cities. What he failed to work out is a way to shield the occupants from the consequences of Newtonian physics.

He did get one partially built in Las Vegas, but instead of laying track and buying light rail vehicles like a sensible person, he installed a glorified subterranean bus system.

It's called a subway, Elon, and cities that have them have found they've worked really well for over a hundred years in many cases. Of course, they're probably not going to be fully operational in a lot of cities in another 100 years due to climate change and sea level rise, but they were a damned good idea for a very long time.

[dalton99a]

19. +1. There are people who believe he invented underground transportation

the way he invented rocket propulsion and the battery

[AZLD4Candidate]

12. The art of the grift. Musk and Trump. . .two peas in a pod.

[chriscan64]

13. The Monorail episode of the Simpsons

was supposed to be a cautionary tale, not a business plan.

[Celerity]

14. ...

[Dorian Gray]

15. Monorail... monorail...monorail...monorail!

Love that episode.

lol

Musk is a huckster.