“Either traffic forever or tunnels.”
(Picture: (L-R) Getty Images, pixellnull/Twitter)Elon Musk once said it’s “traffic forever, or tunnels”. Unfortunately, he’s managed to create a hybrid of both.
Footage has gone viral showing a traffic jam in Elon Musk’s underground tunnel in Las Vegas, during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES).
The show usually draws massive crowds, with many journalists and others viewing new products and technologies in the consumer electronics industry from thousands of exhibitors.
But at this year’s show, which runs from January 5-7, it wasn’t packed out as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
As a result, the video shared online of the backed-up traffic at the annual Las Vegas tech convention seems perplexing.
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The Loop is an underground tunnel that is around 40 feet deep and runs from near the Las Vegas Convention Center’s West Hall to the South Hall and back.
People enter Teslas at ‘stations’, and are then driven by a human (no self-driving features yet) through the tunnel to a drop-off point.
But apparently the jam was caused because the tunnel - which can fit 70 cars - had 90 cars in at times due to ‘driver error’.
Some people took to social media to share videos of their high-tech traffic jam experiences.
“Oh my there’s a traffic jam,” someone could be heard saying in one video.
2025: This how most will die, asphyxiating in a tesla tunnel traffic jam, which is supposed to be impossible pic.twitter.com/9DDX5PU83w
— pixelnull… Certified Illuminati Strategy Architect (@pixelnull) January 6, 2022
“The @boringcompany Convention Center Loop operating early as CES kicks off today. Driver said 90 cars are in use in the 3 stop loop system today,” wrote ReviewJournal journalist Mick Akers.
The @boringcompany Convention Center Loop operating early as CES kicks off today. Driver said 90 cars are in use in the 3 stop loop system today. #vegas #vegasloop #boringcompany #ces pic.twitter.com/s9CU2c4DZ0
— Mick Akers (@mickakers) January 5, 2022
Check out some other reactions to the tunnel jam below.
I don't see how this is any better than just driving on a normal road.
— James Hoffmann (@JamesHoffmann3) January 6, 2022
this traffic jam only happens with like a dozen cars down there; what do you want, one tunnel per car?
— Chris Pinecone (@chrisisme) January 6, 2022
They should link the cars together, have one driver in the front car, and run these between stations on a regular schedule. Thinking they could call it a “subway”. Brilliant.
— PPP Venture Capitalist (@PPP_VC) January 6, 2022
@elonmusk @CNBC I thought this was supposed to solve traffic problems
— Human run bot (@RyanakaFlats) January 6, 2022
What happened to the 600mph tunnel thing?
— Cedric Alessandro Chambers (@ChambersFineArt) January 6, 2022
In a report from 8News, a CBS affiliate, if there are issues in the tunnel, “drivers, who the Boring Company employs, are trained to continue to the nearest station. If there is a blockage, drivers are trained to reverse out of the tunnel.”
In a November 2021 tweet, Musk made the claim that it’s “either traffic forever or tunnels” that would help reduce traffic.
It’s either traffic forever or tunnels. Try our first operational tunnel in Vegas at the convention center! The city just approved a full tunnel network, connecting major hotels, convention center & airport.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 22, 2021
Indy100 reached out to the Consumer Technology Association, an organiser of the CES convention, for comment.
