Elon Musk has got a"verbal" approval to build an ultra-high-speed rail connection capable of sending commuters from New York to Washington, D.C., via Philadelphia, in exactly—and Musk was precise here—29 minutes.
There are a few issues with this plan -
Technical ones: That superfast train, known as the Hyperloop, exists only as a prototype, and a tunnel from New York to Washington would be more than twice as long as the longest tunnel ever drilled, and more than five times longer than the longest rail tunnel. As far as anyone can tell, all Musk has done on that front is start a tunneling company that owns a used drilling machine. It's called the Boring Company.
When you’re talking about a project that would cost billions of dollars and span federal, state, and local jurisdictions, verbal approval isn't really a thing. It turns out Musk hadn’t notified the mayors of the three cities where he said his proposed Hyperloop would stop.
Musk later clarified that someone in the federal government had expressed support and admitted that formal approvals had yet to be granted, but it's tough to un-call a shot like that.
At the risk of stepping straight into Musk's reality distortion field, his tunneling plan is pretty reasonable. Technically, it’s much more feasible than many are making it out to be. Politically, it’s a no-brainer. And it follows the same playbook Musk used to build support for other wackily ambitious projects.
Sometime in the coming months, SpaceX will launch the Falcon Heavy, the largest American rocket in almost 50 years, and one designed to land vertically after delivering a payload into orbit. That’s something no rocket company had been able to do reliably before Musk came along. Given these accomplishments, it is easy to forget that the Musk who first spoke about going into space sounded at least as crazy as the one looking to dig the world’s largest tunnel.
Musk followed the same basic formula with Tesla, picking a goal that many saw as impossible—a mass-market electric car—and using that goal as a way to build enthusiasm, both among investors and consumers, for a series of incremental products. At the end of this month, Tesla will deliver the first production models of that mass-market car, the Model 3. The company, which struggled for survival more than once in years past, is now worth more than General Motors.
None of this makes the East Coast tunnel a sure thing, but digging sure sounds easier than building a rocket that lands vertically.
Of course, federal approval, still a big if, would help Musk only so much with state and local officials along with his proposed route, many of whom will likely be inclined to oppose anything Trump supports.
At the moment, all these possibilities seem pretty remote. But it makes sense to regard Musk’s tunnel proposal as an opening bid, like another guy known for grand proclamations, the tunnel plan is worth taking seriously, not literally.
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