The Boring Company revamps its website to give some information over how its tunnel boring machine Profrock will live up to its stated revolutionary speeds.

Elon Musk had previously stated that Prufrock would be 10 to 15 times faster than contemporary TBM. The current speed is given as 1 mile per week on Boring Company website. While it has not reached the target speeds, it is still impressive. The website states that the current speed is 6 times faster than their previous TBM design Godot+. Not bad. Current Prufrock speed is mentioned to be 4-5 times slower than a garden snail. It goes on saying that "Prufrock’s medium-term goal is to exceed 1/10 of human walking speed, which is 7 miles per day".

The Boring Company gives some hints as to how it plans to achieve these speeds:

• Tripling TBM Power: increase power while improving cooling systems (more power = more speed)
• Continuous Mining: installing the tunnel’s precast segments simultaneously with mining eliminates the need to stop the TBM every five feet
• Surface Launch and Porpoising: Prufrock arrives on a truck, tilts down, and mines within 48 hours
• Eliminating Rail: utilizing rubber-wheeled segment trucks instead of traditional rail-based locomotives eliminates the time-consuming rail installation and maintenance

As you can see, although it has not reached the speed goal yet, the Boring Company's Prufrock 's already pretty revolutionary on some aspects. This “porpoising”, meaning it launches directly from the surface, mines underground, and re-emerges upon completion reportedly allowing Prufrock to begin tunneling within 48 hours of arrival onsite is one. No need to dig expensive shafts!

This is getting interesting!

https://www.boringcompany.com/prufrock

image credit: The Boring Company