Elon Musk exchanges tweets on $1bn Blue Mountains tunnel plan

Elon Musk and rogue Greens MP win praise and derision after Tweets on a plan to tunnel under the Blue Mountains.

Elon Musk, speaks during an unveiling event for the Boring Company Hawthorne test tunnel south of Los Angeles in December. Picture: AFP

A rogue NSW MP and one of the world’s richest tech billionaires are plotting to fix the state’s congestion problems, with Tesla boss Elon Musk declaring it would cost $1 billion to dig a tunnel through the Blue Mountains.

Former Greens and now independent MP Jeremy Buckingham tweeted at Mr Musk on Wednesday night that Sydney was “choking with traffic.”

NSW MP Jeremy Buckingham ripped up his Greens membership to become an independent in December. Picture: John Feder

“How much to build a 50km tunnel through the Blue Mountains and open up the west of our state?,” he asked the mogul.

“About $15M/km for a two way high speed transit, so probably around $750M plus maybe $50M/station,” Mr Musk — who has more than 24 million followers — replied.

About $15M/km for a two way high speed transit, so probably around $750M plus maybe $50M/station

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 16, 2019

Mr Buckingham also tagged Australian tech billionaire Atlassian boss Mike Cannon-Brookes, who said he supported the idea.

“Sounds like a bargain for Sydney,” Mr Cannon-Brookes said.

Mr Buckingham wrote back to Mr Musk, saying he’d discuss the plan with the premier and colleagues and come back to him.

“Thanks mate. Sounds like a bargain. Could be a game changer to go under the Blue Mountains with a modern link between Sydney and thee west. I’ll raise it with the Premier … other colleagues, the community, and get back to you.”

Thanks mate. Sounds like a bargain. Could be a game changer to go under the Blue Mountains with a modern link between Sydney and the west. I’ll raise it with the Premier @GladysB other colleagues, the community, and get back to you.

— Jeremy Buckingham 🌏 (@greensjeremy) January 16, 2019

Mr Buckingham publicly resigned from the Greens in December, accusing the party of changing focus from the environment to campaigning against capitalism and fermenting divisions over identity politics. His resignation came as part of what has been described as a “civil war” within the party in NSW.

Elon Musk’s Boring Company, one of the entrepreneur’s many ventures, has tunnelling projects underway. But all are in the US and only one test tunnel has been completed to date.

It has outlined plans for a “dugout loop” to connect the Los Angeles Dodgers stadium in California to the nearby metro, and is working with the city of Chicago to build a connection between the airport and downtown area.

A Blue Mountains tunnel would be The Boring Company’s first international project.

When Mr Buckingham was asked by a Twitter user why he felt Mr Musk was the best person to help build a tunnel, he replied “Because Mars, cars, batteries etc.”

The exchange has been met with a mix of optimism and derision online, with some users mocking the “randomness” of the plan.

“NSW can’t even build trains that work when it rains or gets hot we are certainly not building a tunnel under the Blue Mountains,” one user wrote, with another writing, “Wait. So a former Greens MP is just randomly floating the idea of a tunnel through the Blue Mountains. Lol.”

Atlassian’s Mike Cannon-Brookes. Picture: John Feder

Mr Buckingham has been pushing for the project since the 1990s, when he was a councillor in Orange in the NSW Central West.

He believes the tunnel, which would allow vehicles to be transported on platforms at high speeds, would help ease traffic congestion in Sydney and open up the state’s west.

In this tunnel, which is an idea pioneered by Musk, cars would be strapped into a device and propelled forward at speeds of about 500km/h.

“For about the price of knocking down one stadium, Elon Musk says he can build a transport loop for NSW that would be the envy of the world,” he said in a statement on Thursday.

“Autonomous, electric vehicles that generate zero pollution are the future of transport. It would be madness not to further investigate would could be an infrastructure and planning game changer for Sydney and our regions.”

In 2017 after a tweet from Mike Cannon-Brookes, Mr Musk’s Tesla company took up the challenge to help South Australia’s struggling power network and successfully built the world’s biggest lithium-ion battery.

Additional reporting: AAP.