The Boring Company: Elon Musk shares video of first working car elevator

Elon Musk's Boring Company is getting closer to achieving its founder's vision of creating a futuristic alternative transportation approach. Musk shared a short video of the Boring Company's first working car elevator in an Instagram post. The SpaceX and Tesla founder first came up with the concept of building underground roads to beat traffic in December 2016.

However, Musk's firm has leapfrogged to materialise the alternative transportation concept in less than a year. The footage shared by Musk shows a Boring Company elevator gradually lower underground.

In May, the company released details of how it plans to turn the concept of underground roads into a reality. "To solve the problem of soul-destroying traffic, roads must go 3D, which means either flying cars or tunnels. Unlike flying cars, tunnels are weatherproof, out of sight and won't fall on your head. A large network of road tunnels many levels deep would fix congestion in any city, no matter how large it grew (just keep adding levels)," the Boring Company said.

In essence, Musk's idea involves building underground tunnels that can be used as an electric sled service for cars to be transported from one place to another. Last week Musk tweeted that he received "verbal approval" from the US government to build a Hyperloop network between New York and Washington DC. However, US officials said that no such approval was provided.

"Nobody in City Hall, or any of our city agencies, has heard from Mr Musk or any representatives of his company," Ben Sarle, a spokesman for the New York City mayor's office said, the Guardian reported.

"The New York state department of transportation did not give verbal approval for a hyperloop," said spokeswoman Jennifer Post.

However, the Guardian cited a White House official confirming that Musk had "promising conversations" with White House officials about the project.

Although the tunnel networks for both Hyperloop and the Boring Company is likely to take substantial time and effort to get approved and complete, the car elevator test footage shared by Musk indicates that the ambitious project is swiftly progressing.