Elon Musk turned to an unexpected place, the Midwest, for help with his tunnel project. As the CEO of rocket and electric car manufacturers, Musk’s thoughts are in outer space or the future—not Wisconsin.
Lacking the industry know-how to get his tunnel digging project started, Musk’s team asked the Super Excavators, Wisconsin-based contractors, for help, USA Today reports. Through the consultants, the company acquired a giant tunnel boring machine that measures 14-feet wide and hundreds of feet long.
The Boring Company was created by the tech entrepreneur to develop ways of building tunnels faster. Musk envisions a machine that can bore the tunnel while reinforcing it simultaneously. That’s how the SpaceX and Tesla CEO plans to build the infrastructure for his underground Hyperloop system from New York City to Washington, D.C.
The contractors didn’t say how much The Boring Company paid for the machine, which was used to build San Francisco sewers. According to USA Today, it can cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
For Musk, the purchase is just a starting point. His eventual goal is to build a tunnel boring machine that works ten times faster than current technology. Then, a network of traffic-reducing underground tunnels.
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