JR Central announced in December 2007 that it planned to raise funds for the construction of the Chuo Shinkansen on its own, without government financing. Total cost, originally estimated at 5.1 trillion yen in 2007, escalated to over 9 trillion yen by 2011. Nevertheless, the company has said it can make a pretax profit of around 70 billion yen in 2026, when the operating costs stabilize. The primary reason for the project's huge expense is that most of the line is planned to run in a tunnel (about 86% of the initial section from Tokyo to Nagoya will be underground) with some sections at a depth of (deep underground) for a total of in the Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka areas.