We have often reported on South Africa-born Elon Musk’s space missions – but recently, to add to his plate of already fantastical, yet profoundly realised dreams, he is going underground.

Yup, Musk plans to connect the USA through a series of deep, deep, underground tunnels.

During an interview with TED Talks curator Chris Anderson, the two chatted about Musk’s plans for the future – and here’s one thing we learnt about what is now called ‘The Boring Company’ (because you bore holes, geddit):

The deepest mines are much deeper than the tallest buildings are tall, so you can alleviate any arbitrary level of open congestion with a 3D tunnel network.

The interview, which isn’t hard-hitting, rather focused on Musk and his personal favourite talking points, like Tesla, gigafactories and, now apparently tunnels, too.

Here are five other Musk-knowledge takeaways, from The Verge:

Victory is beating the snail

Musk said current tunnel technology literally doesn’t even operate at a snail’s pace. So he’s put a target on the back of the most well-known snail in pop culture: Gary the Snail from SpongeBob SquarePants.

“Currently he’s capable of going 14 times faster than a tunnel boring machine,” Musk said. “We want to beat Gary. He’s not a patient little fellow. That will be victory. Victory is beating the snail.”

Hyperloops have their role underground, too

Since Musk is now associated with two different kinds of tunnel technologies — one being the underground transportation system, the other being the above-ground hyperloop — Anderson asked him to reconcile the two.

Musk said that some hyperloop tech could be used underground since the tunnels are already designed to withstand five or six atmospheres — far more than what’s needed to create the vacuum required for hyperloops to work. Musk believes underground hyperloops would be ideal for certain routes, like Washington, DC to New York City. “There’s no real length limit,” he said.

Apparently, the Tesla Semi is “really fun”

The Tesla big rig will be unveiled later this year, so it’s no surprise to hear that the company’s got a working version that, apparently, Elon’s already driven.

“When I was driving the test prototype for the first truck, it’s really weird, because you’re driving around, and you’re so nimble, and you’re in this giant truck,” Musk said. “I drove it around the parking lot. I was like ‘This is crazy.’ Driving this giant truck and sort of making these mad maneuvers.”

Citing the impressive torque associated with electric motors, Musk said the forthcoming Tesla semi truck can “out-torque” any diesel truck. “If you had a tug of war competition, the Tesla semi will tug the diesel semi uphill.”

Gigafactories will be a real thing this year

Musk thinks that about 100 of his battery-producing Gigafactories might be enough to help shift the world toward completely sustainable energy, and in working toward that goal, he firmed up plans to announce “somewhere between 2 and 4 Gigafactories later this year. Probably 4.” He didn’t say where they’ll be, only that “we need to address a global market.”

He kinda explained his association with Trump

First of all I’m just on two advisory councils where the format consists of going around the room and asking people’s opinion on things. So there’s like a meeting every month or two. You know, that’s the sum total of my contribution. But I think to the degree that there are people in the room who are arguing in favor of doing something about climate change or you know other certain social issues — you know, I mean, I’ve used the meetings I’ve had thus far to argue in favor of immigration and in favor of climate change. And if I hadn’t done that, there wouldn’t — that wasn’t on the agenda before. So maybe nothing will happen, but at least the words were said.

Those are just the highlights, but in the near-40-minute interview below you can not only swoon over Musk chatting to Anderson, but also listen to a few things that might interest you personally.

[source:theverge]