Footage captured of ‘traffic jam’ in Elon Musk’s underground tunnel project

Elon Musk once said it’s “traffic forever, or tunnels”. Unfortunately, he’s managed to create a hybrid of both.

Footage has gone viral showing a traffic jam in Elon Musk’s underground tunnel in Las Vegas, during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

The show usually draws massive crowds, with many journalists and others viewing new products and technologies in the consumer electronics industry from thousands of exhibitors.

But at this year’s show, which runs from January 5-7, it wasn’t packed out as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

As a result, the video shared online of the backed-up traffic at the annual Las Vegas tech convention seems perplexing.

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The Loop is an underground tunnel that is around 40 feet deep and runs from near the Las Vegas Convention Center’s West Hall to the South Hall and back.

People enter Teslas at ‘stations’, and are then driven by a human (no self-driving features yet) through the tunnel to a drop-off point.

But apparently the jam was caused because the tunnel - which can fit 70 cars - had 90 cars in at times due to ‘driver error’.

Some people took to social media to share videos of their high-tech traffic jam experiences.

“Oh my there’s a traffic jam,” someone could be heard saying in one video.

“The @boringcompany Convention Center Loop operating early as CES kicks off today. Driver said 90 cars are in use in the 3 stop loop system today,” wrote ReviewJournal journalist Mick Akers.

Check out some other reactions to the tunnel jam below.

In a report from 8News, a CBS affiliate, if there are issues in the tunnel, “drivers, who the Boring Company employs, are trained to continue to the nearest station. If there is a blockage, drivers are trained to reverse out of the tunnel.”

In a November 2021 tweet, Musk made the claim that it’s “either traffic forever or tunnels” that would help reduce traffic.

Indy100 reached out to the Consumer Technology Association, an organiser of the CES convention, for comment.