Tesla Built a Huge Underground Tunnel in Texas Super Factory
TapTechNews June 13th news, after two years of planning and excavation, Tesla finally built a huge underground tunnel at its Texas Super Factory, and its purpose is amazing.
According to Electrek, Tesla plans to use this new tunnel to transport the Cybertruck trucks that just came off the production line to the nearby vehicle staging area, and these electric pickups will not require drivers during the transportation.
TheBoringCompany announced on Monday that its tunnel boring machine Prufrock 3 has successfully broken through at the Texas Super Factory. Prufrock 3 was first spotted being transported to the site in January this year, and it is known to have completed the excavation task on or before June 8 when a drone operator spotted the boring machine during an aerial survey of the Tesla Austin factory. TheBoringCompany said that the design speed of Prufrock 3 can exceed one-tenth of the walking speed of humans, that is, it can excavate about one mile (TapTechNews note: about 1.6 kilometers) of tunnel per week.
This tunnel connects Tesla's new factory expansion area in the south and the vehicle staging area on the other side of the expressway. Insiders disclosed that the main purpose of this tunnel is to transport the Cybertruck trucks coming off the production line to the staging area. However, sources also said that the construction of this tunnel started long before Tesla finally determined the Cybertruck plan.
The exact cost of the tunnel is not yet known, but according to TechCrunch, Tesla disclosed that it paid $200,000 to TheBoringCompany in 2023 and $1 million by February 2024. This has sparked some criticism against Musk as this is not the first time that Tesla uses services provided by other companies of its CEO.
Insideevs said, frankly speaking, this solution itself is quite ingenious. By transporting cars through a short tunnel similar to the Vegas Loop, Tesla can save a lot of time and resources to transport the vehicles to the staging area and then to buyers across the country. But what is really impressive is that Tesla plans to make this transportation task autonomous. If they can achieve this, it will be quite an amazing achievement.