Boring Company's Shuttle Might Be the Tesla Minibus in Disguise

The Boring Company seemingly came out of nowhere, and in just a few months, it's almost ready to start digging its first tunnel in California. Musk's vision, as presented in the initial video released (embedded below), is that of a huge network of tunnels layered on top of each other freeing up the streets on the surface.

To some extent, there are already plenty of cities that use underground trains to reduce congestion up top, but Musk seemed to take things further. His vision focused on the use of electric sleds that would act as platforms for personal vehicles. The cars would load up on the sleds at street level, then they would be lowered into the tunnels by elevators where they would be free to travel to their destination free of traffic and at great speeds.

But the video also showed a glimpse of another type of sled. This one had the same lower structure, but featured a glass canopy on top. It was a fleeting presence in the clip, but the Boring Company has now released a set of images of the vehicle.

There aren't a lot of features worth speaking about, but there is one aspect that might have gone unnoticed so far with the sled version: these things are fully-fledged vehicles of their own. They have four wheels, meaning they could just as well drive on the streets up top as they dart through the tunnels underneath.

In his Master Plan: Part Deux, Musk did mention something about a Tesla minivan that would be used for public transport together with the autonomous driving technology, but the CEO has been pretty quiet on the subject ever since. While this is just an early rendering, it could show a preview of what that vehicle might look like.

The rendered shuttle bears the logo of the Boring Company, so that's just a wild speculation, but it would make perfect sense. Musk also mentioned the idea that similar tunnels could be used for Hyperloop transportation, even though that would have to occur over longer distances since in an urban area, the pods wouldn't even have the time to get up to speed before having to stop again.

So, at the end of the day, Musk might only be building a new subway system capable of speeds of up to 125 mph (200 km/h) that may or may not take your personal car as well. For now, though, what he needs to do is start digging, and we'll see about the rest later.