Tesla uberbulls often like to say that Tesla is the leader in self-driving because while it doesn’t have a commercially available autonomous ride-hailing service like Waymo, it doesn’t rely on geo-fencing and mapping like Waymo.
They argue that if Tesla wanted to do that it could, but it prefers to focus on an autonomous system that could drive anywhere, anytime, without mapping.
However, it is questionable that they could do it if they wanted to because they still haven’t done it on a project much simpler than Waymo’s operations in Pheonix and other cities: the tunnels under Las Vegas.
The Las Vegas Convention Center Loop is The Boring Company’s first full-scale loop project currently in commercial use.
Elon Musk’s tunneling start-up completed the $50 million project in just over a year.
A Boring Company Loop system consists of tunnels in which Tesla electric vehicles travel at high speeds between stations to transport people within a city. The Boring Company said that it was working with Tesla to use its self-driving system inside those tunnels, which would enables to get rid of the current drivers and lower the cost of operation.
However, 2 years and several more tunnels connected to the Loop later, The Boring Company is still using drivers in the tunnels.
FSD is an exciting prospect for a number of reasons. Creating subterranean tunnels specifically for transportation is an exciting prospect for a number of reasons. Creating subterranean tunnels for FSD cars is perplexing at best.
The whole point of FSD cars is to utilize existing public infrastructure. The whole point of digging tunnels for transport is to bypass existing infrastructure for dedicated service to key locations. I don’t see a compelling reason to combine the technologies.
You’re missing the forest for the trees:
Because Musk’s companies sell tunnels and automobiles.
You’ll probably have to have an account on X to ride in this albatross.
Tbh the it feels like a move that only makes sense in Vegas. Like a Tesla subway is one of the least absurd sites there.
I did like it better than monorail some, but if the monorail had AC in the waiting area it had it beat.
The idea of being able to make tunnels faster and cheaper is super exciting, though there’s some serious doubt that is actually what was accomplished. Still, maybe if it works out a better company can mimic it more efficiently.
I think a lot about this sci-fi race in an Anne McCaffrey book that put most of their infrastructure underground to preserve the natural beauty of their planet. I want that for us so bad. I mean, we can still have buildings and such above ground but imagine if transport was almost exclusively underground, the amount of space we’d save for building things we actually use and the amount of wildlife we’d preserve.
Burying highways would make such a difference. Things would be so quiet.