It seems like the Las Vegas Convention and Visitor’s Authority expected trouble with The Boring Company, and built a contract that will impact Elon Musk's bottom line for falling short of agreed system capacity and construction timelines.
Mark Harris provides on an investigative report into shortcomings in the people mover planned by Elon Musk's The Boring Company (TBC) for the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC). Planning files reviewed by TechCrunch "seem to show that the Loop system will not be able to move anywhere near the number of people LVCC wants, and that TBC agreed to."
The LVCC wanted a system that could move up to 4,400 attendees every hour between exhibition halls and parking lots, according to Harris. But: "Fire regulations peg the occupant capacity in the load and unload zones of one of the Loop’s three stations at just 800 passengers an hour. If the other stations have similar limitations, the system might only be able to transport 1,200 people an hour — around a quarter of its promised capacity."
Failing to hit the targets laid out in the agreement would cost The Boring Company a lot of money—more than $13 million of the construction budget and millions more in penalties, reports Harris.
Harris provides more analysis of the project, as planned by The Boring Company, and notes that the LVCC anticipated the gamble it was taking on this untested application of Musk's ideas about transportation infrastructure. So when the Las Vegas Convention and Visitor’s Authority wrote its contract with The Boring Company, "it did its best to incentivize Musk to deliver on his promises," according to Harris.
Harris updates the expected timeline for the project, which was tied to payments, noting that one big milestone, the completion of the entire working system, already passed on October 1.
Previous Planetizen coverage of the Las Vegas Convention Center Loop project:
FULL STORY: Elon Musk’s Las Vegas Loop might only carry a fraction of the passengers it promised
Public Underwhelmed by Latest Look at the Boring Company's Work in Las Vegas
Elon Musk poked the transit planning community on social media last week with a rendering of the forthcoming Las Vegas Convention Center Loop tunnel.
Conflicts With the Las Vegas Monorail Complicating Elon Musk's Tunnel Plans
In the rush to get the LVCC Loop ready for a major conference in 2021, concern grows about the potential of the project to damage the existing Las Vegas monorail system.
Tesla’s Self-Driving Still Not Working in Las Vegas Tunnels
The Boring Company had previously said it was working with Tesla to use its self-driving system in its tunnels below Las Vegas to save costs on drivers, but two years later, there is no clear timeline for “full autonomy.”
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