MUSK BORING COMPETITION | TECHNICAL


STUDENT TBMs BATTLE IT OUT IN LAS VEGAS BORING CONTEST


Elon Musk’s Boring Company held its first Not-A-Boring Competition in Las Vegas, Nevada in September which saw student teams from around the world compete to ‘beat the snail’. George Demetri reports on the outcomes


As a disruptor, Elon Musk is continually making waves. In successfully completing operating tunnels for Tesla cars in one year below the Las Vegas Convention Centre, his Boring Company has demonstrated its intent on improving current mechanised boring technology. He has thus thrown down the gauntlet and challenges the tunnelling sector. Although of relatively modest diameter and length, the


Loop tunnels’ completed in Vegas could be the first step in achieving his stated objective of ‘beating the snail’:


Right:


Preparing the Swissloop TBM for excavation


building tunnels ten times faster and cheaper than is possible using current technology and techniques. For Musk, current technologies are unlikely to


produce the network of tunnels at the rate (and cost) necessary to cater for the loop and hyperloop networks that will allow ultra-fast regional travel. Achieving the high-speed travel of the future will therefore require quantum leaps that are typically only made possible by a transformation in existing technology and the associated costs; for Musk,


November 2021


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