Musk plans 240-km per hour city travel at just $1
Los Angeles, May 18: SpaceX and The Boring Company CEO Elon Musk has for the first time revealed his concept for a personalised mass transit system or "Loop" that will carry 16 people and travel at 240 km per hour for a fare of just $1.
In a rare public appearance here late on Thursday, the Tesla founder also unveiled the project details, including 2.7 miles of tunnel that will run north to south parallel to the 405 freeway in Los Angeles, CNET reported.
Musk, however, did not provide a time-line for his project that could get people from downtown to Los Angeles International Airport in eight minutes in a vacuum tube.
Musk "envisions dozens to hundreds of small stations, about the size of a single or double car parking spot, to alleviate traffic at any one spot".
Musk was joined by The Boring Company director Steve Davis.
"It's the only way we can think of to address the chronic traffic issues in major cities," Musk said.
These tunnels were not yet part of his cross-country "Hyperloop" system, which would ferry people in tubes travelling at airline speeds at a much lower cost.
"Excited for @boringcompany partnership with LA Metro," Musk later tweeted.
LA Metro is the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, an agency that operates public transportation for the County of Los Angeles.
According to the city, the proposed tunnel would begin with the entry/exit point at 2352-6 Sepulveda Boulevard, north of West Pico Boulevard, in West Los Angeles.
Earlier, Musk hinted that he plans to link the hyperloop project under his start-up The Boring Company with SpaceX's rockets to create a transportation system that may ferry people anywhere on Earth in less than an hour.
The Boring Company is an infrastructure and tunnel construction company founded by Musk in late 2016.
Musk's aviation company SpaceX has got approval from the City of Los Angeles to build The Big Falcon Rocket, or BFR, which will be used to explore Mars -- a goal that Musk hopes to accomplish by 2022.
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NATO, others turn down US call for help in Hormuz: Trump
Washington (PTI): President Donald Trump on Tuesday said NATO and most of US' other allies have rejected his calls to help secure the Strait of Hormuz as the war with Iran entered the third week.
In a social media post, Trump asserted that Iran’s military has been “decimated” and he no longer felt the need for assistance from NATO countries or anyone else.
Last week, Trump had sought help from European nations and others who depend on oil supplies transiting from the Hormuz Strait to safeguard the critical waterway.
“The United States has been informed by most of our NATO “Allies” that they don’t want to get involved with our Military Operation against the Terrorist Regime of Iran, in the Middle East, this, despite the fact that almost every Country strongly agreed with what we are doing, and that Iran cannot, in any way, shape, or form, be allowed to have a Nuclear Weapon,” the US President said in a post on Truth Social.
Iran's attacks on Gulf nations and its grip on the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil is transported, have sparked increasing concerns of a global energy crisis and are unnerving the world economy.
“I am not surprised by their action, however, because I always considered NATO, where we spend Hundreds of Billions of Dollars per year protecting these same Countries, to be a one-way street — We will protect them, but they will do nothing for us, in particular, in a time of need,” Trump said.
He said Australia, Japan and South Korea too have turned down his call for help.
“Fortunately, we have decimated Iran’s Military – Their Navy is gone, their Air Force is gone, their Anti-Aircraft and Radar is gone and perhaps, most importantly, their Leaders, at virtually every level, are gone, never to threaten us, our Middle Eastern Allies, or the World, again,” Trump said.
He said that given the scale of recent military successes, the US no longer "need" or desires assistance from NATO countries, adding that it never relied on such support in the first place.
Speaking as President of the United States, the "most powerful" country in the world, "we do not need" help from anyone, Trump said.
The West Asia conflict began on February 28 when the US-Israeli combine conducted airstrikes on Iran.
The Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway that connects the Persian Gulf to the open ocean, has effectively been shut following the US and Israel attack on Iran and Tehran's sweeping retaliation.
However, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had said that from Tehran's "perspective", the strait is "open". "It is only closed to Iran's enemies, to those who carried out unjust aggression against our country and to their allies.”
Earlier in the day, a second Indian-flagged LPG tanker, Nanda Devi, reached the country after safely sailing from the war-hit Strait of Hormuz. On Monday, the first ship, Shivalik, reached Mundra port in Gujarat.
As of now, 22 Indian vessels remain on the west side and two on the east side of the strait.
Indian authorities are in constant touch with all the relevant stakeholders in the region to secure the safe passage of the remaining ships, officials said.
