2 minPrufrock explained: how The Boring Company's tunnel machine works, and where Tesla comes in
Prufrock launches straight from the surface, lines the tunnel while it digs and moves to the next site on a trailer. How it differs from classic tunnel boring, the targets, and the Tesla links.
Every Boring Company project, from the Vegas Loop to Nashville and a theme park in San Antonio, depends on one machine: Prufrock. Its goal is to make tunnels so cheap and fast that they become an everyday option for cities. Here is how it works.
The problem with normal tunnelling
A conventional tunnel boring machine for soft ground digs about five feet (1.5 m), stops, installs a ring of precast concrete lining, and then continues. Before it can start, contractors dig a large launch pit and lower the machine in with heavy cranes. That makes tunnels slow and expensive.
What Prufrock does differently
- Porpoising: Prufrock arrives on a truck, tilts its nose down and drives itself into the ground, starting within about 24 hours. At the end of a tunnel it surfaces again. No launch pit is needed.
- Continuous mining: it installs the tunnel lining while it keeps digging, instead of stopping for each ring.
- Moving on: when it emerges, it mines onto a trailer called The Monster, which drives it to the next site.
- Standard design: the company uses the same tunnel size and design on all projects, which simplifies manufacturing.
The targets
The Boring Company aims for a speed of about one mile (1.6 km) a week and an all-in cost of less than $5 million per mile for a Loop tunnel. Those are goals; actual speeds depend heavily on the ground and on permits.
The family
- Prufrock-MB: a hard-rock version digging through limestone in Nashville, where MB1 and MB2 work together and more are on the way.
- Prufrock-5: a machine of about 900,000 pounds, now waiting in San Antonio for a tunnel at Morgan's Inclusion Campus.
Where Tesla comes in
- The Liner Trucks that bring tunnel segments to Prufrock run on Tesla Model 3 batteries and drive units.
- The finished Loop tunnels carry passengers in Tesla cars, as in Las Vegas.
- In 2024, a Prufrock machine completed a tunnel at Tesla's Giga Texas factory that moves finished Cybertrucks to the logistics area.
What to watch
Real-world digging speeds in Nashville's rock, the start of the San Antonio tunnel, and whether costs stay close to the company's targets as projects multiply.
