--- title: "Boring Company Partner Teases 16-Passenger Tesla Vehicles" description: "According to local authorities, the Boring Company's Las Vegas tunnel could soon be using higher capacity vehicles built by Tesla." date: "2021-04-09" modified: "2021-04-09" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/boring-company-partner-high-capacity-vehicles" categories: - "Advanced Transport" - "Tesla" tags: - "boring company" - "elon musk" - "the boring company" - "the digest" --- # Boring Company Partner Teases 16-Passenger Tesla Vehicles ![According to local authorities, the Boring Company's Las Vegas tunnel could soon be using higher capacity vehicles built by Tesla.]() *\Image: The Boring Company\* ## Las Vegas Express New details have emerged about Elon Musk's Boring Company tunnel-digging venture, which is currently working on connecting two ends of the Las Vegas Convention Center. Once opened to the public, the tunnel will cut a 15 minute walk down to only a couple of minutes thanks to modified Model X and Model 3 Tesla vehicles racing through the pair of white-walled 1.5 mile tunnels at up to 35 mph. In the future, however, the Boring Company could be planning to scale up capacity. Steve Hill, the CEO of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, which owns and operates the Las Vegas Convention Center, [told the *Las Vegas Review-Journal*]() yesterday that the company plans to eventually use specially built higher capacity vehicles — an apparent reference to an upcoming, higher-capacity Tesla vehicle. https://twitter.com/jamesmschaeffer/status/1380363276823928834 ## Tesla Bus? Hill's comments were difficult to parse. The *Las Vegas Review-Journal*'s wording appeared to endorse the idea that it was specifically Tesla working on the high capacity vehicles, but the claim didn't appear in a direct quote by Hill. At press time, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority had not responded to a request for clarification from Futurism. Many questions remain. We don't know however what these vehicles will look like, when they'll show up, or if the company will ever decide to roll them out in the first place. "It seems that during a pandemic is not the time to be increasing capacity," Hill told the *Review-Journal*. It's also worth noting that in 2018, Musk teased us with [renders of what looked like passenger pods]() that could fit roughly 16 passengers. It's unclear if Hill was referring to that design. ## Next Stop The tunnel's fleet is made up of 11 vehicles right now, and will eventually be expanded to 60. There are three stops: one near the convention center's Central Hall, and two above-ground stations at either end of the tunnel. It's also still unclear what the boarding and disembarking procedures will look like, let alone the wait times. While the tunnel hasn't opened to the public yet, the Boring Company is already in talks with Las Vegas authorities to built the "[Vegas Loop]()," a 15 mile tunnel with stations connecting various resorts and attractions. It's hard to say what to make of the Las Vegas tunnel. Ferrying the Convention Center's hundreds of thousands of visitors in one seven-seater Tesla at a time seems [incredibly inefficient](). But if Musk's ventures ever decide to collaborate on a 16-passesenger van, purposefully designed for the task, the tunnel may eventually start to make a lot more sense. **READ MORE:** [Get a close look at shuttle system 40 feet beneath the convention center]() \[*Las Vegas Review-Journal*\] **More on the Boring Company:** *[Man Faced 10 Year Sentence for Wielding Elon Musk Flamethrower]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()