By Ashley Karen
Aerial footage of The Boring Company’s site in Bastrop, Texas, has revealed that the tunnelling startup is busy with what seems to be a new test tunnel. A short video of the site indicates that The Boring Company’s tunnelling technology is moving gradually.
Like other Elon Musk-related efforts, The Boring Company has dreams that lie far beyond its current operations. Musk has supported the tunnelling startup’s innovations as a possible way to solve traffic and urban congestion. Avid followers of Musk’s enterprises also suppose that The Boring Company’s technology may be employed as part of SpaceX’s Mars colonization plans.
Today, a fundamental part of The Boring Company’s technology is Prufrock. Prufrock is an all-electric TBM designed to revolutionize tunnel boring, operating far faster than conventional tunnel boring machines in the market. As reported by The Boring Company on its official website (https://www.boringcompany.com/prufrock), “Prufrock’s medium-term goal is to exceed 1/10 of human walking speed, which is 7 miles per day.”
A video published by Chap Ambrose, who presently rooms beside The Boring Company’s Bastrop site, shows that the testing of Prufrock is well underway. Although Ambrose only shared a short drone flyover of the site, one could see a steady stream of dirt coming out of a conveyor system. Derived from the video, it appeared that Prufrock was busy flexing its digging muscles when the video was taken.
Ambrose remarked that the tunnel being bored in his video is the second test tunnel that The Boring Company has made in its Bastrop site. This may very well be true, regarding that in October 2022, Elon Musk published a video of Prufrock “porpoising” from the ground. At the time, the TBM might have just finished its first tunnel.
The Boring Company may not attract the same amount of news coverage as Elon Musk’s other firms, but its work is truly exciting nevertheless. So far, The Boring Company is busy constructing the Vegas Loop, an underground public transportation system in Las Vegas, Nevada.
