Boring Co. Vegas Loop: Hop in and ride a self-driving Tesla through tunnels

If you’re riding in the Boring Co.’s Vegas Loop and notice your driver isn’t steering the vehicle, that’s because, in some cases, they aren’t.

Last month, Boring Co. began offering Vegas Loop rides in self-driving Teslas. The rides include a safety driver in place for now, and are only available for rides between the Las Vegas Convention Center’s Central Hall and Encore. But a larger rollout is being eyed by the Boring Co. and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

“If you weren’t paying attention that the driver didn’t have their hands on the wheel, I don’t know that you’d notice at all,” Steve Hill, Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority president and CEO said. “That’s certainly the way we want it, and you see the progress that that industry (robotaxi) is making now, you can see Zoox on the open roads all the time. A year ago, that was just getting started. So, it’s pretty remarkable, and we’re really excited about it and looking forward to being able to more fully implement it.”

Busy rollout

The initial rollout came after months of testing in the tunnels without riders. Last week’s SEMA show — with over 160,000 attendees — was the first major show at the convention center where attendees could hail an autonomous ride. When the Road Warrior hailed a ride last Thursday during SEMA, it was tracking to be the busiest day in the Vegas Loop’s four-plus-year existence.

“You see so much more of the show because that system is on campus,” Hill said. “I had lunch at one of the properties that we’re connected to earlier in the week, and there were a bunch of people from the (SEMA) show that would go over and have lunch and come back that probably wouldn’t have done something like that if the system wasn’t available.”

Self-driving vehicles within the system are easily identifiable, emblazoned with “Tesla Self-Driving Vehicle” markings. The safety driver will also alert passengers when they enter a vehicle that they are in a self-driving version.

Nothing new for Tesla

Hill said with Teslas already having the option to operate in full self-driving mode on public roads for about a decade, this is nothing new for the electric vehicle maker, but it did mark a milestone for the Vegas Loop.

“It’s notable because it’s in our system, yes, but what we’re doing now we’re just testing them (in autonomous mode) with a driver in them,” Hill said. “But it’s been going on for a better part of 10 years now on the open road. We’re glad to get that process started here. This system is a closed system, it’s completely controlled by Boring Co. It’s one of the easiest environments you’re going to find to develop a safe autonomous network. We’re glad we’re making progress; but frankly, it’s not any different than what people have experienced on the open road for years.”

There is no time frame on when autonomous rides to other stations will begin, but that is on the horizon, especially as the Vegas Loop expands across the Las Vegas Valley.

“We plan to have an autonomous system fully operational when it is safe to do that,” Hill said. “So, we are taking it diligently and professionally, which translates a little bit into ‘slowly,’ to make sure that each step we take is safer when we feel comfortable taking the next step.”

Next steps

The next major milestone for the Vegas Loop will be when the safety driver is removed and rides are offered in fully empty vehicles.

“When you take the driver out, that’s when it becomes really notable,” Hill said. “That will happen at some point; it’s certainly happening on our open roads already. We’re excited by that, and we think it makes transportation safer and makes the experience fun and interesting. We love Las Vegas being on the cutting edge of these technologies.”

For the better part of the year, Boring Co. crews have been tunneling from a site on Paradise Road near UNLV’s Thomas & Mack Center to Westgate, with multiple planned stations in between. The expansion is the first that will lead to the ultimate goal of 68 miles of tunnels with 104 stations with the Vegas Loop system.

What’s called the University Center Loop will have a station at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas, a planned apartment complex Boring Co. is looking to build, one in the Howard Hughes Center that would in part serve Sphere and one just north of Terminal 1 at Harry Reid International Airport. Crews have reached Westgate already, and the tunnel now needs to be outfitted for vehicle use.

“We’re pretty optimistic. We’ve worked through some permitting issues: a couple have been issued and a couple more are set to be issued,” Hill said. “So, we can start the construction on stations, we can continue with the construction of the tunnels and look forward to getting that line up and running. It’s a difference-maker for the city. That goes to the airport and is connected to the properties and the convention center, you’re going to start to reduce congestion in this town. That is starting to be something that we can countdown in months and not years.”

Contact Mick Akers at [email protected] or 702-387-2920. Follow @mickakers on X. Send questions and comments to [email protected].