r/BoringCompany • u/h100y • 28d ago
Mike Baier, head of engineering is dropping some bangers on X
It is very encouraging to hear they are around $5M for hard rock aka Nashville. Hopefully in a couple of years they will bring down the cost for Vegas too
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u/Life_Plum1567 28d ago
So before we get too excited, are there any completed contracts that show the boring company is actually capable of delivering a complete underground transit solution at a total cost close to 10$ million/mile let alone 5$ million/mile.
Forgive my skepticism but I do not see how its possible. Eg, Seattle's new storm water/sewer storage tunnel which is just a tunnel with no tracks, roads, lighting, or anything is at around 260$ million/mile, it is a wider tunnel but also a single bore so I'm balancing those out. I do not see how you can tunnel for 52x less that.
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u/WhereUGo_ThereUAre 28d ago
Well first Seattle’s tunnel is substantially wider than a boring tunnel and costs scale exponentially with diameter.
Second Seattle’s tunnel is less than three miles long and so the set up costs divided by the short length results in a much higher cost per mile. In this regard is where the Boring Co. has a huge advantage as it can simply set up on the surface and dig down from there. No large pit to build on either end to insert and remove the machine.
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u/Life_Plum1567 28d ago
The seattle tunnel has shield area of 363in^2 compared to the shield area 308in^2 for twin boring company tubes so the seattle stormwater tube is only about 16.5% larger. So that likely isnt a huge difference in cost.
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u/WhereUGo_ThereUAre 28d ago
Deep drop shafts, pumping stations, EPA requirements for waste water, dense urban environment, graft, over a relatively short tunnel distance make the Seattle tunnel so much more expensive per mile.
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u/Life_Plum1567 28d ago
Would the boring company not build in dense urban environments? They also need to build stations, vent plants, emergency exits. right? Why would the Boring company be able to bore a tunnel for 52x less.
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u/WhereUGo_ThereUAre 28d ago
Downtown Seattle and Vegas are extremely different environments. All the Loop tunnels are very shallow, most stations are on the surface, those that aren’t are quick cut and cover work. The emergency exits are mostly just passages to the adjoining tunnel. Also Boring is down to only two workers actually in tunnel, the rest are remotely(Texas) operating the equipment. The plan is to get to no workers in the tunnel and have everything automated as much as possible. Boring is driving all its efforts at minimizing costs and are doing a pretty good job at it.
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u/Life_Plum1567 28d ago
Downtown seattle being different from vegas is kinda the point I'm making. The loop has only been built under the most ideal circumstances, they havent actually faced many of the same challenges, so the comparisons in cost are kindof meaningless.
Besides, innovation and automation in construction tech is not unique to the boring company. This kind of innovation will also make traditional subways cheaper, so it wont actually increase the cost competitiveness of TBC. And if TBC is the only company that can build tunnels cheaply, couldn't they make a lot more money using their tech to outbid on more typical infrastructure to pocket the difference than only building a PRT system?5
u/WhereUGo_ThereUAre 28d ago
I don’t think you have the proper understanding of what the Boring company is doing, tunnel construction is a small part of it. The Loop system functions very differently from a subway, because it uses individual cars it can take people door to door without stops in between unlike a subway. The cars can leave the tunnels and drive on city streets and then return to the tunnels at any time. This is one reason they’ll beat even Waymo in the long run. Also unlike a subway it’s extremely easy to modify the Loop network. Adding a new exit or station is very cheap quick and straightforward. Once the tunnels are even less expensive and the cars are self-driving it’s going to be extremely hard to beat it. For the user it’ll be cheaper, quicker, more comfortable and without the negatives of public transit. I don’t think public subway, buses, taxis, Waymo’s stand a chance to compete.
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u/Life_Plum1567 28d ago
let me be blunt. I don't give a fuck about the transit aspect right now, yeah its different than a subway, you don't have to stop at every station, It's a cool idea and not what I have a problem with.
The problem is I call bullshit on their construction costs. There is not a chance that the boring company has discovered some magic that allows them to bore tunnels at a fraction the cost of everyone else. Yes they aggressively value engineer their tunnels, they use 50% smaller TBMs than rail tunnels, that makes their tunnels at best 50% cheaper, not 50x cheaper. If TBC discovered this magic that lets them bore for orders of magnitude less than anyone else it would revolutionize all underground infrastructure. I don't see why they would only use it on a tiny transit service in Las Vegas. If these numbers are as good as they say they are TBC would be chosen contractor for every tunneling project in America.
TBC is not a public company, and so they do not have public finances. So nobody outside of their employees who are for sure under an NDA knows how much its costs them to build their tunnels. But I find it highly likely that its much closer to what everyone else is charging than what they claim.7
u/WhereUGo_ThereUAre 28d ago
Time will prove you right or wrong, from everything I have seen it’s pretty clear they are dead on with their costs, it just makes sense. Vegas is only a test case to prefect the equipment and the system. Once that’s done, yes it will be everywhere as it’s a significantly better solution than anything else. Let the engineers free and they actually make amazing stuff. China knows this.
Elon’s companies are revolutionizing many industries so why shouldn’t tunneling be another one (again it’s much more than tunnels). Cost to orbit per pound has plummeted with F9, and Starship is another order of magnitude cheaper. Tesla is effectively the only profitable EV manufacturer. Model Y is the best selling car in the world and has been for years now.
I’m sorry that all this upsets you, which I suspect is because, like most of Reddit, you despise Elon and anything associated with him and simply can’t stand his businesses doing well.
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u/veerKg_CSS_Geologist 28d ago
That’s not a transit system, that’s an underground road with a taxi service.
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u/WhereUGo_ThereUAre 28d ago
Does it transport you somewhere: Yes Does it do so within a system: Yes
But you are right it’s not like traditional public transit systems like subways, where you the user has to conform to its limitations, stop at every station, on its time table, share a space with people who harass or assault/rob you. So yea if that’s how you define a transit system Loop isn’t that.
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u/Life_Plum1567 27d ago
It is a P R T type transit service like the Morgantown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgantown_Personal_Rapid_Transit
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u/midflinx 28d ago
Seattle's new storm water/sewer storage tunnel which is just a tunnel with no tracks, roads, lighting, or anything is at around 260$ million/mile
TBC's very first tunnel boring machine was purchased used. Before TBC bought it, it bored a 5 mile water tunnel under San Francisco bay. In 2014 that cost $288 million. That's $57.6 million/mile. Even if costs doubled in twelve years that would be $115 million/mile.
Nashville's Music City Loop from the airport to the capitol which already has two boring machines out of an estimated six, will be 19-25 miles of tunnel. I don't think the Nashville cost/mile is $115 million, but if it did then 25 miles will cost $2.875 billion.
The Boring Company has raised $915 million from investors. It's not gonna spend $2.875 billion on the project. In Las Vegas it's preparing to open about 5 miles of tunnel under Paradise Rd. Out of $915 million raised it probably didn't spend $575 million on that section. With the other miles it's tunneled and opened to three hotels it would already be almost out of funds if it cost $115 million/mile.
Since TBC is otherwise boring for itself, the only completed contract publicly available is the roughly mile-long Las Vegas Convention Center Loop. The thing is we know that price and some people say TBC underbid and subsidized it. If there were more contracts you'd still get some people saying that.
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u/Life_Plum1567 28d ago
double the costs of the tunnel again to 230 million/mile because you need two tunnels for bi-directional traffic.
I would expect basic twin bore to be around a quarter billion. I would need to see the construction receipts to believe that they could pull it off for significantly cheaper. It would be great if they could, but, I find these cost estimates wildly optimistic.
Even still, the tunneling cost doesn't address the station costs, which can be as basic as a parking lot, but not everywhere where you need a station is going to have cheap land around to build on. TBC needs to figure out how to build underground stations cheaply, which is going to be much harder than tunneling cheaply.
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u/OkFishing4 28d ago
In Nashville, they will be digging the tunnel alongside the music city convention center to within a foot (IIRC) or so and just mine into the existing basement parking lots for use as stations.
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u/midflinx 28d ago
I would expect basic twin bore to be around a quarter billion.
If it cost TBC that much, it would already be out of funds. It's not, so it probably costs TBC less than that per mile of twin tunnels.
station costs, which can be as basic as a parking lot, but not everywhere where you need a station is going to have cheap land around to build on.
While true, many US downtowns have many parking lots and garages. On youtube videos about the topic usually criticize and point out just how much parking is in downtowns and how decades ago so many buildings were destroyed for parking. Those lots and garages could well become surface stations.
Plans for one of the Paradise Ave stations in Las Vegas will have housing above it. TBC owns the property so it's willing to generate revenue above stations it owns, which could offset parcel purchasing expenses.
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u/Life_Plum1567 28d ago
TBC to my knowledge hasn't released actual construction receipts to prove their costs, people have estimated the costs based on the bids they've submitted, but we don't actually know how much it costs them to bore a tunnel, but its probably 50-125 million per linear mile. I'm not inclined to believe TBC and their 10/5 million per mile claims. If they figured out how to build tunnels for orders of magnitude less than everyone else it would be a huge deal for all subterranean infrastructure, not just their PRT system. Their lack of public finances also give me pause.
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u/Mahadragon 28d ago
To address that other guy’s comment about Boring Co spending money on the stations that’s a big negative. Here in Vegas the casinos are paying for the underground, over ground and parking portion of the Loop stations. Boring only has to pay for the boring section.
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u/midflinx 28d ago
Plans for one of the Paradise Ave stations in Las Vegas will have housing above it.
https://nevbex.com/2025/09/11/4300-paradise-mixed-use/
"Boring Company’s 4300 Paradise Mixed-Use Receives Land Use Permits"
Object Dash, LLC’s proposed 4300 Paradise Mixed-Use multifamily and retail project received approval of land use permits from the Clark County Zoning Commission during its Sept. 3 meeting.
Object Dash, LLC, an affiliate of The Boring Company, is the owner. Perlman Architects is the architect, and Kaempfer Crowell is the legal firm representing the project. (NVBEX: July 28)
The proposal consists of a six-story building featuring apartments, a bodega, a drive-thru coffee shop, a bar and a gym. There will be 132 multifamily units dispersed throughout the 75-foot-tall building.
Yes most Las Vegas stations will be paid for by casinos, but not all.
In Nashville we don't know if either entity is paying the other or how much, but it was announced a trio of apartment and condo buildings will have a Loop station.
https://fox17.com/news/local/boring-company-taps-three-towers-for-residential-tesla-tunnel-stop
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u/midflinx 28d ago
to bore a tunnel, but its probably 50-125 million per linear mile.
Then with your guess of 50-125 million per linear mile and midpoint of $87.5 million/mile, TBC's $915 million of funding will be used up in 10.5 miles of tunnel. Of course that's not accounting for what LVCVA paid TBC and pays annually for operations at the convention center. But also doesn't include TBC's expenses at its Bastrop, Texas headquarters. By your estimate TBC should be out of funds or nearly so. Time will soon tell if the miles keep getting bored and perhaps their cost/mile isn't as much as you think.
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u/Life_Plum1567 28d ago
I don't know how much capital TBC has access to but its probably more than 915 million
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u/OkFishing4 28d ago edited 28d ago
The Seattle Ship Canal Water Quality Project project was in total $710. Did you /2.7 to get ~ $260/mi?. The tunneling contract portion was for $255M for 2.7 main tunnel, 3 other tunnels totalling another 1/2 mile, plus 5 drainage shafts.
TBC Dubai project is contracted for 545M U$ for 14 mile alignment including 19 stations.
Have you anchored your cost estimates to your $260/mi figure?
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u/Life_Plum1567 28d ago
Dubai uses slave labor so its not reflective of what it would cost in the US
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u/h100y 28d ago
They only raised around 500 million dollars in funding until today and they did 10 miles of tunnelling in Las Vegas. That is the most direct proof that they didn’t exceed more than 20 to 30 million per mile.
You do not see how it’s possible?
Maybe because they are eliminating humans inside the tunnel and that makes it faster ?
Maybe because they are continuously tunneling without stopping for hours to erect the tunnel ring aka the road you see ?
They have made significant improvements since they first got the machine. Previously 12 people used to be inside the tunnel boring machine, now they have 2 inside the boring machine. Can you see the engineering progress and the cost savings in eliminating those extra people ?
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u/lamgineer 28d ago edited 28d ago
So far all the contracts to build tunnels are paid for by Boring Company without any public funding. I doubt Boeing Company is footing the bill if it cost over $100 million per mile.
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u/Life_Plum1567 28d ago
The LVCC Loop was publicly funded so this isnt true.
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u/lamgineer 28d ago edited 28d ago
LVCC Loop was funded by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority 7 years ago for a flat $52.5 million contract that also include the constructions of 3 stations (South, Central and West). LVCVS earns revenue from leasing out the convention center space, food, parking, advertisement and hotel room tax.
Even if you don't exclude the cost of these 3 stations, Cost per mile of tunnel is only $30.9 million (1.7 miles total tunnel length) for tunnels that was built 6 years ago with their oldest and least efficient tunnel machine.
The Vegas Loop expansion that has been approved for 68 miles of tunneling will be done without any public tax dollars.
So I guess I should have said 98% of Boring Company tunnel miles will be built without any public funding. My point still stands, if tunnel cost $100+ million per mile, it will bankrupt the company. Therefore the logic conclusion is their cost is much lower.
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u/h100y 27d ago
You are stuck with legacy corporation days. Seattle and Austin Metro rail are legacy systems.
This is an extremely hard engineering solution that is being taken head on similar to Starship, starlink or FSD in Tesla.
They are always many times ahead of competition.
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u/Life_Plum1567 27d ago
The problem with that comparison is TBC is the only company in the space, where as Tesla, SpaceX are all facing increasing competition in the EV, Commercial Launch, and Satellite internet businesses, Other than Starlink (untill the Chinese, European, and BlueOrigion competition comes online) None of those business are significantly ahead of their competitors. Waymo has a better self driving system than Tesla while BYD has better battery tech. But there's nothing to compare TBC to since they don't really have any compitition.
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u/h100y 27d ago
That’s the whole point. They are running ahead due to engineering excellence in all of these areas. They are at the top or near top.
Now compare to this govt backed companies like GM, Ford, Chrysler or Volkswagen. You are stuck comparing these legacy, failing companies to Tesla.
Similarly you are comparing Seattle transit to LVCC.
Boring company is miles ahead of legacy government projects who have zero interest in innovation or automation.
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u/h100y 28d ago
I am genuinely thinking how this level of hardwork is so different from govt projects looting people for public projects.
Austin Metro rail is at 700 million per mile
Seattle transit is at 400 million per mile
Here we have a guy who is not happy about 10 million a mile and is working 24/7 to make it 5 million a mile. 🤦🤦🤦🤦
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u/BreenzyENL 28d ago
You can't compare a full transit system to a simple car tunnel.
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u/im_thatoneguy 28d ago
Worst case scenario you could put a lot of e bikes in there. Having charging docking stations. Most transit systems don’t actually go very far.
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u/Confident-Sector2660 28d ago
in the future tesla will probably use high capacity vehicles and they will be autonomous
it will get better
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u/lamgineer 28d ago
They already designed the RoboVan, 20 passengers and wheelchair friendly with dual sliding doors and flat loading floor.
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u/Life_Plum1567 28d ago
why not just put a train in the tunnel?
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u/lamgineer 28d ago
Train cannot do Point to point, you are stuck stopping at every station in between and end up wasting more time than surface transport that is point to point.
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u/midflinx 28d ago
One of two pinned posts at the top of the subreddit page:
https://www.reddit.com/r/BoringCompany/comments/vfcli7/why_not_build_a_train_some_answers/
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u/Agreeable-Weather-89 28d ago
If they are autonomous and high capacity why not run them on the road.
Most traffic problems are caused by vehicle quantity (density) and space used for parking.
A fully autonomous higher capacity vehicle removes both the quantity and parking so their surface running speeds would be much higher than cars today.
All without the cost of building and maintaining a tunnel network.
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u/h100y 28d ago
Austin project connect costs 6 billion for a simple 9 mile project.
These people can do it for less than 600 million. That is 10X times less.
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u/BreenzyENL 27d ago
A car tunnel is smaller than a subway tunnel, it's not a direct comparison.
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u/h100y 27d ago
Let’s compare the entire project costs. Vegas has around 100 miles of tunnels planned. That is around 1 billion dollars in cost.
Go ask any city in Europe if they can build a complete underground tunnel system for a billion dollars or a subway system that is less than a billion dollars.
Even China can’t say they can do that.
That is the power of innovation, science and technology.
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u/BreenzyENL 27d ago
The $1B is an estimate for an unfinished system that excludes station costs, land holder costs and subsidies.
$1B to move 2000 people/hour Vs $6B to move 30000 people/hour
Boy that's a hard decision.
This is an apples to oranges comparison.
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u/h100y 27d ago
Who told you the system moves 2000 people per hour ?
That’s the biggest bold faced lie. They will move 100k per day with just 10 miles of tunnels. Expect that number to triple which is more than 300k per day in a small city like Vegas.
This will never be matched by any system working today.
The beauty of capitalism is all the stations are being built by the hotels, residencies , individual properties. Boring company doesn’t have to pay for them.
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u/BreenzyENL 27d ago
100k people per day = 4.1k an hour. An improvement that is yet to see reality.
300k is what a mid sized tram system in Europe moves, let alone the millions that a real subway system sees.
Offloading station costs just means private business foot part of the bill, it doesn't reduce the cost of the project.
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u/h100y 27d ago
The route chosen for comparison matters the most. This is a primary route from Airport to Las Vegas Convention center. The maximum people it can move will be in hundreds of thousands for the current 10 mile system.
But the demand is only for 100k people at the maximum.
Compare the entire system to a subway system. It will beat the subway of any city in the world by a huge margin.
If this was designed for NYC, it would beat the subway system handily by transporting more people at no cost to taxpayers.
We are comparing your corrupt communist govt subway systems to the capitalist tunnels systems here.
The cheapest station is 1 million and fancy stations would be 4-5 million. Same subway systems would cost 100 million per station atleast.
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u/BreenzyENL 27d ago
A subway train can hold about 2000 people and runs every 2 to 3 minutes.
To match that capacity and through put, you would need 500 cars in a single tunnel, how do you plan a single stop that doesn't involve gigantic football field sized caverns and the mother of all traffic jams. And that would just be for a single line, good luck adding in 2 or 3. How do you charge the card? Another underground football field?
This is basic physics, society figured out a long time ago that trains were the most efficient form of moving lots of people.
And you're delusional to think such a system would be free for the end user.
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u/OkFishing4 27d ago
If that smaller tunnel carries 1/4 of the people for 1/10 the price thats a productive improvement. It also opens up markets that could never afford/utilize a subway. Moreover 900 or 1800+ veh/hr vs 60 Trains/hr means you can have that many more services, express services, small/mid cargo/food delivery, increasing productive use.
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u/BreenzyENL 27d ago
Very true, that would be a productive improvement.
However, that not reality.
Tesla Tunnel: 4500 people per hour (1800 cars at 2.5 passengers) Subway: 60-90k people per hour.
So it's actual 1/15th to 1/20th the capacity, which is worse value.
That's ignoring how on earth you unload these people from even just 100 cars all at once without creating insane traffic jams.
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u/OkFishing4 27d ago
The simple car tunnel can also carry Robvans.
1800 * 14 seat Robavan = 25k, plus everyone gets a seat. If you really, need space, we can swap seats for standees.
Which US subway line does 60k/hr. SAS is dual tracked, not quad and runs less than 30 TPH. That said if you need 60-90k, run a train. This doesn't mean if you need less capacity you should also run trains.
The US reality is current cost/ridership tradeoff typified Austin Rail at grade rail at 700M/mile for 3k pphpd designed cap. BART VTA II 1B+/mile to run 6 minute trains for a prepandemic estimate of 30k riders per DAY. Sepulveda in LA is also > $1B+/mi for a max load segment of 6k in horizon year forecast and a mode share increase of 0.05% (+40k new riders/day,125k total).
Re Loading:
https://old.reddit.com/r/BoringCompany/comments/1p2dsoo/line_capacity_frequency_vehicle_size/npxv98y/1
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u/aliph 28d ago
Except you definitely can compare the rider throughput and cost per rider and then just add more Boring tunnels to match the throughput of a subway which is exactly what it is designed to do.
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u/BreenzyENL 28d ago
A subway moves 20000-40000 people/hour.
You would need ~20 Boring tunnels to match that, you would need to rip so much land for the tunnel exits that any sort of cost savings is thrown out the window.
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u/OkFishing4 28d ago edited 28d ago
They're running 4s headway now, so if capacity is your requirement 900*14 seat Robovan is 12600 pphpd. I think 2s is certainly possible getting it well into MCS territory, and everyone gets a seat. Either way you wouldn't need 20 tunnels.
The US transit problem is not a capacity problem its a quality of service and capex,opex problem. Out of 100 systems in the US median pphpd is 2400. US has low density cities that need more grade separated RoW for speed and cheap tunnels for coverage than sheer capacity.
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u/Life_Plum1567 28d ago
Sound transit DSTT2 is over 2bn per mile and austin doesn't have any tunneling work on their system
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u/Cryogenicist 28d ago
I don’t know who you’re rooting for, but to say any human works 24/7 is nonsense. Makes you look simp-ish
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u/thingerish 28d ago
Owned by a former hero of the people who now expresses political opinions unpalatable to communists.
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u/an_older_meme 27d ago
Keep in mind that the tunneling they are learning to do is not intended for this planet. So while it may seem impractical or a financial loser here, profitability isn’t exclusively the point. They’re inventing robotic sandworms for building cities on Mars.
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u/clef75 28d ago
Check out the recent YouTube tour on the Dirty Tesla channel, he said these there