Musk pitches Austin-to-SA Hyperloop tunnel, again — SkimNews
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- Musk posted on X that the Boring Company is working on a "precursor Hyperloop tunnel" between Austin and San Antonio at over 200 mph, reducing the 80-mile I-35 journey from up to 2.5 hours to a "consistent <30 mins"
- The pitch included no route, no timeline, no cost, and no permit; the Boring Company replied only that it "would be excited and honored to build this massive infrastructure project"
- Musk introduced hyperloop in a 2013 white paper promising 700-mph pods in near-vacuum tubes, and has floated at least four major iterations since — including a 2017 NY-DC route he said had "verbal" government approval and a 2018 DC station green light, neither of which materialized
- In late 2022, the Boring Company tested a Tesla driving through a tube at normal air pressure rather than a pod in a vacuum, while still advertising "600+ mph" — nothing came of that either
- The Boring Company's only delivered project remains the Las Vegas Loop, where human-driven Teslas top out around 35 mph and self-driving still isn't operational
- The company recently raised $3 billion at a $23 billion valuation led by the UAE, while independent rival Hyperloop One shut down in December 2023 without moving a single paying passenger
Why it matters: A decade after Musk's original white paper, no hyperloop carries paying passengers anywhere on Earth — the weekend-tweet pitch with no permits or funded agreement puts this in the same folder as the never-built NY-DC tunnel, leaving Austin-San Antonio commuters who endure I-35 traffic with another headline but no project.
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