EXPLAINER: Elon Musk promises ‘Dubai Loop’ tunnel network

Elon Musk said on Thursday that he was partnering with Dubai authorities to create a “Loop” underground road network in the congested city.

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South Africa-born Musk’s Boring Company has built a similar system in Las Vegas, with Tesla cars – another of his products – driving passengers down narrow, one-way tunnels for a fee.

No details announced

“It’s gonna be like a wormhole – you just wormhole from one part of the city, boom, and you’re out in another part of the city,” Musk, the world’s richest person, said by videolink at the World Governments Summit in Dubai.

No details of the project were announced.

Currently the Vegas Loop has four stops and costs $10 for a five-minute, 8km ride.

“I think (when) people try it out, they’ll be like, ‘This is really cool.’ And it’s so obvious in retrospect, but until you actually do it you don’t know,” said Musk.

Despite a giant road network of six-lane highways criss-crossing Dubai, traffic jams are common in the fast-growing United Arab Emirates city of about 3.6 million people.

According to UAE Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence Omar Al Olama, who announced the joint project with Musk, the Loop will “cover Dubai’s most densely populated areas for people to go from point to point” seamlessly.

The project is not to be confused with the Musk-inspired Hyperloop, which envisages floating pods travelling at ultra-high speeds along a vacuum-sealed tube.

After initial steps began in 2016 to build a Hyperloop between Dubai and oil-rich UAE’s capital, Abu Dhabi, the project is yet to become reality.

Musk, a key appointee of US President Donald Trump, is currently slashing government spending, freezing aid programmes and pushing staff reductions in federal agencies.

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