People familiar with Elon Musk know the billionaire owns other companies besides Tesla, including SpaceX and the Boring Company. The latter came about because Musk tweeted out his distaste for Los Angeles traffic. His idea was to build tunnels underneath the city, transporting people in their vehicles using an automated system. Aside from a few high-profile demonstrations, The Boring Company's products have been mostly conceptual in nature. Until now, that is.

Work on the Las Vegas Convention Center Loop is complete, and The Boring Company has given select media a chance to try it out. The LVSS loop is meant to serve as a prove of concept for The Boring Company tunnels, but the near-finished product looks vastly different from what we were initially expecting.

The loop features parallel one-mile tunnels to shuttle passengers to one of three stations, one of which is completely below ground, and two of which are located above ground at the end of the system. This system turns a 15 minute walk into a few minute car ride. Media who visited for demonstrations were shuttled around in familiar vehicles, like the Tesla Model X, but The Boring Company eventually plans to use bespoke electric vehicles that can carry 16 people.

In more ways than one, the LVSS loop looks underwhelming compared to what was originally shown in conceptual videos. First, this system that only shuttles passengers around a convention center is much smaller in scale than one built to shuttle people from one end of a city to another. Secondly, the original concept video envisioned automated platforms that cars would pull onto, and then guide them through the tunnel.

Having Tesla vehicles drive people through a tunnel seems far less innovative, as drivable tunnels have existed for most of modern history, almost as long as the car has been a popular appliance. Let's hope The Boring Company's next project is a bit more ambitious.