Why Elon Musk is really boring.

Many will have noticed how transport entrepreneur Elon Musk’s conquest of the US car and rocket industry has now extended to the creation of transport infrastructure. Musk’s encounter with a traffic jam was reportedly the catalyst for him creating “The Boring Company” with the aim of bringing his particular brand of innovation to the tunnel building industry. 

Tunnels, like cars and rockets, are nothing new and modern uses for tunnels as transport go back to the 1850’s when the first tunnel was built to develop and test trains intended for the city of London’s proposed underground railway. Musk’s plans would seem to hinge on two facts. Firstly that traffic chaos is a problem that demands a solution, and in business solutions can make you money, and secondly that tunnelling hasn’t really moved forwards much and may be ripe for the application of innovative thinking and modern technology.

As a solution to traffic chaos his plans might seem to have a problem, one that any road tunnel has - ventilation. Cars and trucks produce some quite toxic gas and as a consequence existing road tunnels over a certain length require the addition of heavy duty ventilation systems to ensure that drivers entering at one end do not emerge from the other suffering terminal effects of carbon monoxide poisoning.

To many this would be a major problem, and more importantly a major cost, but to Musk this may actually be an opportunity because he just happens to own a company that make cars with zero tail pipe emissions, and he has plans to expand from electric cars into electric freight vehicles as well.

If Musk s efforts to convert the world to electric vehicles are successful then he will create a vast market for tunnels that no longer need heavy duty ventilation and in doing so will also reduce the cost of building them in the first place. Even if some continue to use internal combustion engines his tunnels may well become an exclusive and traffic jam free option for those with an electric vehicle.

If this really is how he has seen the issue then it may be a stroke of genius, but there may also be another side to this tale. The real reason why Musk is boring may be entirely out of this world because if he is serious about starting a colony on Mars then the best and safest places to live are deep underground. Developing the skills and technology to create a pressurised, safe and expandable habitat under the surface of Mars will be vital if his master plan to take over the red planet is to succeed.

So why is Elon Musk really boring? because of MARS!