So far, his company's progress toward this goal has been a bumpier ride.

On Tuesday night, in a parking lot next to SpaceX, Musk's Boring Co. unveiled its first tunnel — a 1.14-mile route that runs 20 to 40 feet beneath the streets of Hawthorne, through a neighborhood sandwiched between the 105 Freeway and Hawthorne Municipal Airport.
Musk had promised modified "but fully autonomous" vehicles at the unveiling, but the reality was more modest: a Tesla Model X that reached a top speed of 53 mph, manually driven by an employee who previously drove in the Indianapolis 500.

The trip through the tunnel took about two minutes, illuminated by the car's headlights and a strip of blue neon lights tacked to the ceiling. The Model X rolled on two molded concrete shelves along the wall, which were so uneven in places that it felt like riding on a dirt road.

The car emerged from the tunnel on an elevator erected inside a round shaft lined with corrugated metal. The shaft, named O'Leary Station in memory of a longtime SpaceX employee who died, is at the site of a shuttered cabinetry store on Prairie Avenue.