Photographer: Bridget Bennett / Bloomberg
Photographer: Bridget Bennett / Bloomberg
Nate Calabrese almost skipped the “desired driver” ad on the job search website Indeed.com because it offered so few details. It turned out that the publication was for Boring Co., the tunnel business owned by Elon Musk. That’s how Calabrese, 27, ended up driving people under the Las Vegas Convention Center on Friday on one of the first public tours of the so-called “Loop” that Musk built there.
The company’s first major commercial project was unveiled at the generous Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this January, but the Covid-19 pandemic stalled. Now, it’s ready for its first major rollout at the World of Concrete event June 8-10, city tourism officials said Friday.
The loop route itself is short and coincides with the tunnels, only 0.4 kilometers long for each of the four sections, making a total of about 1.7 kilometers of tunnel. But they make up for its brevity for fun, with enough brightly colored lights that staff have dubbed “Rainbow Road” track.
The Boring Co. Convention Center Loop in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Photographer: Bridget Bennett / Bloomberg
It comprises a fleet of modified Tesla sedans that, as its name suggests, between three stops, the system can carry passengers up to 40 miles per hour. The idea is to move people to shows that before the Covid routinely attracted tens of thousands of people, in a large space comprising four different exhibition halls. According to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, the cost will be free for conference attendees.
Riders embarking at the stops at the south or west station will wait outside for their Teslas and enter tunnels that go down through entrances lined with painted gray rocks, in the style of the amusement park. Riders boarding at Central Station stop go down 40 feet with an escalator to a large open lobby with space for Teslas to enter so passengers can get in or out. Each car can accommodate three people at this time due to Covid restrictions, but they could hold up to five.
Calabrese said all drivers had to pass tests, including a driving test, and a staggering number of applicants cannot nail the portion that requires them to invest safely out of place, he said. The group had to practice various emergency scenarios, including bomb threats, active shooters and tunnel collapse.
Tesla vehicles parked in the loop of the Boring Co. convention center
Photographer: Bridget Bennett / Bloomberg
The Vegas Loop was approved in May 2019 and was built at a cost of $ 52.5 million, paid for by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Association. Most of the funds came from hotel taxes. Boring has also said he would like to build a loop for Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles from a nearby subway stop. This potential project is still in the process of environmental review. Its only existing project is a test tunnel in Hawthorne, California, which was completed in 2018.
The Las Vegas Convention Center loop could one day take advantage of a larger network planned to connect more parts of the city, including the strip, and potentially, to the airport. These plans are in the permitting and approval phase of the territory, according to a spokesman for Clark County, Nevada, where much of the route would be directed.
So far, Calabrese really enjoys working, and with $ 17 an hour more in profits, he said he is doing much better financially compared to his old life as a taxi driver in Las Vegas. Still, he will still have to find a new job. Steve Hill, executive director of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, Steve Hill said Friday that once cars get driverless transportation certification and passengers feel comfortable with the idea, they will drive alone. “We will work towards autonomy,” he told reporters.