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The Boring Company Plans Hyperloop Tunnel Between San Antonio and Austin
Elon Musk says The Boring Company is building a precursor hyperloop tunnel targeting over 200 mph between San Antonio and Austin, cutting a 2.5-hour drive to under 30 minutes.
Elon Musk has confirmed The Boring Company is working on a "simple, precursor Hyperloop tunnel" between San Antonio and Austin, Texas — a project that, if realized, would move passengers at over 200 mph and reduce the current 2.5-hour drive to under 30 minutes.
What Musk said
In an X post on September 20, Musk wrote: "Boring Company is working on a simple, precursor Hyperloop tunnel between Austin and San Antonio (>200 mph). Due to traffic congestion, that journey can currently take up to 2.5 hours. [@BoringCompany] can reduce that to a consistent <30 mins."
The announcement is light on specifics. No route, cost, construction timeline, or funding source has been disclosed. It's also unclear whether the system would use Tesla vehicles in low-pressure tubes (as envisioned in Musk's 2013 Hyperloop Alpha paper) or operate more like the Vegas Loop, which uses standard Teslas in conventional tunnels.
Texas context
The I-35 corridor between San Antonio and Austin is one of Texas's most congested highways. State lawmakers have studied alternatives for years, including passenger rail — a 2020 study projected 2,000 daily riders with a roughly two-hour trip time. A hyperloop cutting that to 30 minutes would dramatically shift the calculus, but the engineering and regulatory hurdles remain enormous.
No government officials from either city told Drive Tesla Canada they had been contacted about the project. The Boring Company previously had permits for a downtown San Antonio–to–airport tunnel that never advanced.
Precursor, not full hyperloop
Musk's use of "precursor" is notable. It suggests an incremental approach — potentially starting with a simpler tunnel boring demonstration before committing to the low-pressure tube infrastructure that defines a true hyperloop. The Vegas Loop operates at conventional atmospheric pressure with autonomous Teslas; a genuine hyperloop requires maintaining a partial vacuum across dozens of kilometres, a challenge no commercial system has yet solved.
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