Elon Musk may actually be serious about tunneling under L.A.

Elon Musk may actually be serious about tunneling under L.A.

VIDEO

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/01/25/elon-musk-the-boring-company-tunnels/97030778

Nathan Bomey  , USA TODAY Published 8:08 a.m. ET Jan. 25, 2017

One of the few people who is just rich, powerful and inventive enough to actually do something about the legendary traffic congestion in Los Angeles is finally fed up. And he has a plan.

Billionaire innovator Elon Musk declared early Wednesday that he's ready to move ahead with his recently formulated ambitions to bore holes, possibly under the city.

"Exciting progress on the tunnel front," Musk tweeted. "Plan to start digging in a month or so."

Digging just where and how, no one knows. Coming from anyone else, such a declaration might brushed off as a joke.

But given that Musk is the entrepreneur who, with a team, reshaped mobile payments (PayPal), sent rockets into space (Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX) and launched an electric-car company (Tesla Motors), the tweets are unlikely to be dismissed. He is, after all, being taken seriously about a possible Mars mission.

And the tunneling industry is shoveling up a lot of work these days with expectations of growing revenue at an annualized rate of 7.3% from 2016 through 2021, rising to $5.6 billion, according to research firm IBISWorld.

Government investments are key drivers of the growth, representing about 69.5% of industry revenue. In Los Angeles, for instance, there are plenty of tunneling projects are part of an expansion of subway and light rail lines. Major companies in the tunneling business include San Francisco-based Bechtel Group and Omaha, Neb.-based Kiewit Corp., with market share of 4.1% and 2.4%, respectively, according to IBISWorld.

View Full Text

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/01/25/elon-musk-the-boring-company-tunnels/97030778

kcontents