Elon Musk: The future we're building -- and boring | TED

by killdildilya
Chris Anderson: Elon, hey, welcome back to TED.
It's great to have you here.
Elon Musk: Thanks for having me.
CA: So, in the next half hour or so,
we're going to spend some time
exploring your vision for what an exciting future might look like,
which I guess makes the first question a little ironic:
Why are you boring?
EM: Yeah.
I ask myself that frequently.
We're trying to dig a hole under LA,
and this is to create the beginning
of what will hopefully be a 3D network of tunnels
to alleviate congestion.
So right now, one of the most soul-destroying things is traffic.
It affects people in every part of the world.
It takes away so much of your life.
It's horrible.
It's particularly horrible in LA.
(Laughter)
CA: I think you've brought with you
the first visualization that's been shown of this.
Can I show this?
EM: Yeah, absolutely. So this is the first time --
Just to show what we're talking about.
So a couple of key things that are important
in having a 3D tunnel network.
First of all, you have to be able
to integrate the entrance and exit of the tunnel
seamlessly into the fabric of the city.
So by having an elevator,
sort of a car skate, that's on an elevator,
you can integrate the entrance and exits to the tunnel network
just by using two parking spaces.
And then the car gets on a skate.
There's no speed limit here,
so we're designing this to be able to operate at 200 kilometers an hour.
CA: How much?
EM: 200 kilometers an hour, or about 130 miles per hour.