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Elon Musk Is Actually Digging Tunnels To Reduce Traffic

"We have no idea what we are doing."
RASHID ABBASI / Reuters

Turns out Elon Musk is serious about digging tunnels to solve urban transportation woes. The visionary serial entrepreneur said as much in a tweet last month.

And, according to WIRED, the SpaceX CEO ordered his company to dig a tunnel over the weekend at Space X's LA property. A test trench 15 feet deep, 30 feet wide and 50 feet long has been prepared by the company's engineers.

The digging appears to be the first step in an experimental project. Speaking about it on Sunday at a Hyperloop design contest being held inside the Space X premises, Musk said, "We have no idea what we are doing."

Musk did provide a broad outline at the event of how tunneling could ease Los Angeles' traffic congestion. "You have tall buildings, they're all 3D, and then everyone wants to go into the building and leave the building at a same time," he said. "On a 2D road network, that obviously doesn't work, so you have to go 3D either up or down. And I think probably down."

In a Twitter message to WIRED, Musk said, "If you think of tunnels going 10, 20, 30 layers deep (or more), it is obvious that going 3D down will encompass the needs of any city's transport of arbitrary size."

The PayPal co-founder and CEO of Tesla Motors, believes that better tunneling tech would improve roads, subways and would even make way for the futuristic ultra-fast Hyperloop mode of transportation.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.