Elon Musk’s Boring Co begins construction for tunnel-linked garage elevator

Last month, Elon Musk’s tunneling startup, The Boring Company, was granted an approval by the city council of Hawthorne, CA to build a prototype garage-elevator concept that would be linked to one of the company’s high-speed tunnels. Recent photos from Teslarati photographers Tom Cross and Pauline Acalin reveal that construction of the prototype garage-elevator has already begun.

The Boring Company’s prototype garage-elevator is being built west of SpaceX’s Hawthorne facility. The location of the futuristic garage is no accident. Plans for the project involve vehicles entering from the SpaceX campus, moving through a tunnel and onto the garage-elevator, and then traveling back to the SpaceX facility. By adopting this system, The Boring Company would be able to conduct tests on the prototype elevator without causing inconvenience to residents in surrounding areas. 

Photos captured by Teslarati photographers reveal that The Boring Company has broken ground on the site of its recently-announced garage-elevator. While the startup has not officially announced that the construction is, in fact, related to its planned prototype elevator, the location matches the site reported by The Mercury Times. Furthermore, the pit’s sheer scale would fit well with the company’s plans to dig a hole to extract tunnel boring machine (TBM) segments and later fill it with a garage-elevator.

The Boring Company might be a newcomer in the transportation industry that is more well-known for its quirky merchandise such as the Boring Company Not-a-Flamethrower, but the tunneling startup has actually managed to secure deals for high-profile projects. Earlier this year, for example, the Boring Company won a contract for the construction of the downtown Chicago-O’Hare high-speed transport line, beating larger, more experienced conglomerates which were also bidding on the project. The Chicago project would feature the Loop system, which features Tesla-made fully-electric pods capable of transporting up to 16 people at a time.

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