After two years of planning, planning, and digging, Tesla has lastly accomplished an enormous underground tunnel at its Texas Gigafactory, and it is goal is fairly freaking improbable.
In accordance with Electrek, the electrical automaker plans to make use of its new tunnel to ship recent off-the-line Cybertrucks beneath a close-by freeway to its new automobile staging space. And the kicker? The vehicles reportedly will not even want a driver to get there.
Tesla’s Texas Enlargement
Tesla has come a good distance from constructing its manufacturing strains within short-term tents. Gigafactory Texas is the most recent instance of its push to quickly develop its manufacturing capabilities, and rightfully so, given its bold manufacturing targets. The automaker beforehand mentioned that it deliberate to construct its next-generation automobile platform on the Texas manufacturing line, that means its expansions might be gearing up for what’s to come back.
The Boring Firm introduced on Monday that its tunnel boring machine, Prufrock 3, had lastly erupted at Giga Texas after first being noticed on-site in January. It might seem that it accomplished its journey on or earlier than June 8, as a drone operator observed the TBM whereas surveying the Austin manufacturing unit over the weekend.
A separate drone operator captured Prufrock starting its descent on April 4, that means it took round 4 days to finish the approximate half-mile journey beneath close by Pickle Parkway. The Boring Firm says that Prufrock-3 is designed to exceed 1/tenth of human strolling velocity, which is round one mile of tunneling per week.
The tunnel connects Tesla’s new southern manufacturing unit growth to its staging space throughout the freeway. Sources aware of the tunnel instructed Electrek that the tunnel could be used purely as a funnel to maneuver Cybertrucks from the top of the manufacturing line to the staging space. Nevertheless, these sources say the tunnel was within the works earlier than Tesla had these last Cybertruck plans in thoughts.
Tesla started the allowing part of its “Colorado River Connector Tunnel” plan in June 2022. On the time, it was unclear what Tesla’s plans had been, and two underpasses had been already constructed beneath the freeway on the northern and southernmost suggestions of the manufacturing unit. We now know that the aim is a technique that may enable Tesla to move vehicles extra effectively.
The whole value of the tunnel is not clear. Nevertheless, Tesla disclosed that it paid The Boring Firm $200,000 in 2023 and $1 million via February 2024, in keeping with Tech Crunch. This has drawn some criticism in direction of Musk, because it is not the primary instance of Tesla using the providers of its CEO’s different corporations.
I’ve to confess, the answer itself is fairly slick. With Tesla transport its automobiles via a good tunnel over a brief distance, à la Vegas Loop-style, the automaker may save plenty of time and assets getting its autos to the staging space earlier than they ship them to consumers throughout the nation.
However the actual meat right here is that Tesla plans to do that activity autonomously. If it may well pull that feat off, I will be impressed.
