{"id":5387,"date":"2022-07-31T12:46:41","date_gmt":"2022-07-31T12:46:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.obilesky.com\/2022\/31\/boring-company-raises-additional-675-million-as-investors-chuck-money-into-holes-in-the-ground\/"},"modified":"2022-07-31T12:46:41","modified_gmt":"2022-07-31T12:46:41","slug":"boring-company-raises-additional-675-million-as-investors-chuck-money-into-holes-in-the-ground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/game8k.com\/?p=5387","title":{"rendered":"Boring Company raises additional $675 million as investors chuck money into holes in the ground"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Boring Company\u2019s plan to revolutionize transport is best summarized as \u201cTeslas in tunnels.\u201d<\/em><\/figcaption>Credit: ROBYN BECK\/AFP via Getty Images<\/cite><\/p>\n

The Boring Company has raised a new round of funding worth $675 million, with Elon Musk\u2019s grand plan to \u201csolve traffic\u201d with tunnels now valued at $5.675 billion.<\/p>\n

In a blog post announcing the news, the company reiterated its goals and achievements so far, drawing particular attention to its \u201cnext generation\u201d of Prufrock tunnel-boring machines (TBMs). <\/p>\n

\u201cUnlike traditional TBMs which require upwards of a dozen or more people to operate, Prufrock is designed to be capable of operating completely remotely and autonomously via computerized systems and requires zero people in the tunnel to operate,\u201d said the company. \u201cThe current iteration of Prufrock, called Prufrock-2, is designed to mine at up to 1 mile\/week, meaning a tunnel the length of the Las Vegas strip (approximately 4 miles) can be completed in a month.\u201d<\/p>\n

So far, The Boring Company has built just two operational 0.8-mile tunnels underneath the Las Vegas Convention Center, as well as 1.1-mile test tunnel in Hawthorne, California. The company has been pitching its services far and wide, and although many projects have run aground, authorities in Las Vegas last year approved the construction of a 29-mile tunnel system containing 51 stations. <\/p>\n

\n

The planned Las Vegas tunnel system, dubbed the Vegas Loop. <\/em><\/figcaption>Image: The Boring Company<\/cite><\/p>\n

The Boring Company describes its tunnels as a \u201cpublic transportation system that resembles an underground highway\u201d but \u2014 more succinctly and accurately \u2014 as \u201cTeslas in tunnels.\u201d Originally, Musk said the company\u2019s tunnels would use autonomous sleds to carry cars and specially-designed pods at speeds of up 150mph to transport pedestrians and cyclists. So far, they\u2019re currently limited to electric vehicles (Teslas) driven by human employees at around 50mph and carrying ticketed passengers.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s Las Vegas tunnels have been open for a few years now, and first-hand impressions have been mixed to say the least. When everything goes to plan, the company\u2019s tunnels let cars pass through them at sedate speeds. But when they\u2019re busy they also create their own traffic jams \u2014 the very problem they\u2019re intended to solve.<\/p>\n

Investors, though, don\u2019t necessarily care whether or not founders like Musk ultimately follow through on their hyperbole, only that the companies they run attract enough customers and revenue to pay back their own investments. And Musk has proved, time and time again, that\u2019s he\u2019s very good at pushing up share prices and valuations. For the meantime, that means The Boring Company has a lot of tunnels left to dig. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Boring Company\u2019s plan to revolutionize transport is best summarized as \u201cTeslas in tunnels.\u201dCredit: ROBYN…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5388,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2284],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guides"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/game8k.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/game8k.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/game8k.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/game8k.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/game8k.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/game8k.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/game8k.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/game8k.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/game8k.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/game8k.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}