Elon Musk gets the greenlight to connect the Las Vegas Strip with tunnels full of Teslas

  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
  • The Boring Company's biggest tunnel project yet is moving forward.

  • It's a 29-mile-long network of tunnels beneath the Las Vegas Strip.

  • It'll eventually encompass 51 stations served by Tesla vehicles.

Elon Musk's tunneling company just got the green light for its biggest project yet.

Nevada's Clark County on Wednesday approved plans for the Vegas Loop, a 29-mile network of tunnels underneath the Las Vegas Strip. It builds on The Boring Company's first completed project, a 1.7-mile-long loop to ferry passengers around the Las Vegas Convention Center.

The Boring Company aims to cut down on traffic in cities by building underground roadways serviced by fleets of Tesla vehicles. Musk's initial plans called for van-sized Teslas that could drive autonomously, but the company is now leaning on regular Teslas with human drivers.

Critics have said that the tunnel systems are nothing more than a less efficient version of a subway.

The new Vegas Loop will comprise 51 stations around Las Vegas and accommodate 57,000 passengers per hour, The Boring Company says. There will be stops at many of the city's iconic casinos and the city's new stadium. It's intended to be a point-to-point system, where passengers can go straight to their destination without stopping at each station in between, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports.

The Loop won't require any taxpayer funds. The Boring Company will foot the bill for construction and pay a quarterly fee to the county based on how much money it makes on fares, according to the outlet.

The project, years in the making, is a big win for The Boring Company, whose plans in some other cities like Los Angeles and Chicago never materialized. It's also a success for the rest of the Musk ecosystem, which will require a large fleet of Tesla vehicles and will introduce thousands of potential customers to the electric vehicles.

The tunneling firm is also in talks to build a transit system in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Read the original article on Business Insider