Virginia officials not impressed with Boring Company's test tunnel

"It's a car in a very small tunnel," one official wrote.

Tesla co-founder and CEO Elon Musk scored a major win for The Boring Company, another firm he runs, when he secured a contract to build a tunnel under the Las Vegas Convention Center. Nevada could ask him to build one under The Strip, too. Not every state is convinced by the feasibility of his project, however.

"It's a car in a very small tunnel," concluded Michael McLaughlin, Virginia's chief of rail transportation, after flying to California to experience the technology first-hand. "If one day we decide it's feasible, we'll obviously come back to you," he added. McLaughlin trekked out to the Golden State because his team hadn't ruled out asking Musk for a tunnel as it revamps its public transportation infrastructure.

Other Virginia officials who accompanied McLaughlin and also got a ride in Boring's test tunnel came to the same conclusion.

"I don't mean to suggest that they don't have a serious plan in mind, but I don't consider the steps they've taken to date to be substantive. They've purchased a used boring machine. They've put a bore in the neighborhood where they developed the SpaceX product, and they've taken a Model 3 and put guide wheels on it, and they're running it through the tunnel at 60 miles per hour," summed up Commonwealth Transportation Board member Scott Kasprowicz, according to the Virginia Mercury.

Kasprowicz added the technology that The Boring Company is developing could make sense in a couple of years; it notably needs considerably more money in order to move forward at a quicker pace. McLaughlin gave Musk and his team credit for trying to solve traffic problems by creating a new type of public transportation. He also said Boring is aware of the issues his team found when they visited the test tunnel in California and is working on fixing them sooner rather than later. But, at least for the time being, Virginia has no interest in Boring tunnels.