Elon Musk was ridiculed after a viral video showed a traffic jam in his hi-tech underground tunnel that was developed as a solution to alleviate traffic problems.
Musk, an early investor and CEO of Tesla, is also the founder of the Boring Company–an American infrastructure and purportedly cost-efficient tunnel construction services company that built the transit system called, The Las Vegas Loop, seen in the video.
The three-station transportation system continuously ferries guests underground between the Las Vegas Convention Center's (LVCC) West and South Halls in Teslas driven by actual human drivers instead of in the autonomous vehicles originally promised by Musk.
The LVCC Loop, consisting of 1.7 miles of tunnel, took approximately one year to build at a cost of $47 million (firm-fixed pricing).
Twitter user @pixelnull shared the traffic jam video and joked in the caption:
"2025: This how most will die, asphyxiating in a tesla tunnel traffic jam, which is supposed to be impossible."
The video of the subterranean traffic jam was taken from inside a Tesla during last week's Consumer Electronics Show (CES).
A passenger inside the crawling Tesla, which stopped behind other stationary Tesla vehicles in the one-way/one-lane tunnel, was heard telling the driver, "oh my, there's a traffic jam."
When the passenger asked if traffic was common, the driver surmised:
"No, I think what's happening here is the South Hall building doors are closed..."
"The building itself isn't closed but the entrance doors are locked."
"I don't know why."
It turned out the backup was due to a "driver error" of having 90 cars in operation instead of the 70-car maximum allowed.
Ironically in 2016, Musk cited traffic as the inspiration for The Boring Company, which was formed as a subsidiary of SpaceX.
But based on the clip of the claustrophobic crawl, his proposal for solving traffic seemed to be going nowhere fast.
Last year, Musk confidently announced:
"It’s either traffic forever or tunnels."
It appeared he gave us both.
Twitter dragged Musk for his questionable traffic solution.
Taking the LVCC Loop is supposed to save visitors to the center about a 15-minute walk.
But if this video is any indication of a recurring problem, guests may find the foot traffic more appealing than feeling trapped 30-feet underground.
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