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Despite decades of setbacks, Musk’s Hyperloop continues to fascinate

#decades #setbacks #Musks #Hyperloop #continues #fascinate

A decade ago, Elon Musk proposed a new mode of transportation that would shoot passengers in hovering pods through vacuum tunnels at nearly the speed of sound — he dubbed it a “hyperloop.”

Since then, cities from Abu Dhabi to Zurich have been touted as travel destinations, research projects have guzzled millions of dollars and a multitude of commercial ventures have sprung up – even Richard Branson got involved.

“The transportation network hasn’t had a new mode of transport in over 100 years,” said Rick Geddes, a transportation infrastructure expert at Cornell University in the United States, who likened the excitement to the dawn of aviation.

But nobody managed to get the Hyperloop to work.

Difficulties ranged from the expense and finding suitable locations to simply convincing people that it was a good idea to travel through a narrow tunnel at a higher speed than a jet plane.

Musk’s original suggestion would have been a “barf ride,” transportation blogger Alon Levy wrote at the time.

Despite all the problems, the Hyperloop idea still enlivens universities, boardrooms and city halls around the world.

Hidde de Bos, a 22-year-old engineering student, first heard about it four years ago.

His university in Delft, The Netherlands, has excelled in competitions run by Musk’s SpaceX company, which challenged students to develop capsules that can fire through vacuum tunnels.

– Musk returns –

“It got me really excited to see the possibilities out there,” he told AFP.

He is now the chief engineer of Delft Hyperloop, a non-profit university spin-off.

De Bos said the SpaceX competitions, which shut down in 2019, were too focused on speed and had become “drag races in a tunnel.”

Now his team is taking part in a student-led competition, European Hyperloop Week, which he hopes will refocus on sustainable energy and levitation system development.

And Musk himself recently gave a jolt to the Hyperloop fraternity by tweeting that his tunneling company, The Boring Company, will be “trying to build a working Hyperloop” in the years to come.

Musk first mentioned the idea in a 2012 media interview before releasing a white paper about it a year later.

But his direct involvement has been sporadic, and he has always encouraged others to develop the idea.

Los Angeles-based Hyperloop TT, one of the first and most enthusiastic companies to work with Musk’s idea, welcomed his return.

Rob Miller, the company’s chief marketing officer, told AFP it was “further validation” for the concept.

– “More careful” –

But he stressed that Hyperloop is now much bigger than just one man.

To back up his point, fresh proposals from local authorities from Italy to India have surfaced in recent months.

However, proposing is one thing, revolutionizing public transport is quite another.

In the early years, Hyperloop TT signed exploratory contracts in India, China and beyond.

In 2019, the company promised to open a 10-kilometer line in the UAE the following year.

None of these projects came to fruition.

“We’re a little more cautious about these kinds of announcements now,” Miller said.

Virgin Hyperloop, a company briefly run by Richard Branson but majority-owned by DP World, which operates Dubai’s ports, has also had to scale back its promises.

– Prestige for price –

It became the first company to fire people along a Hyperloop test track in 2020.

Branson had considered a 45-minute journey between London and Scotland.

But Virgin Hyperloop recently abandoned the idea of ​​carrying passengers, laid off half its staff and is now focusing on a potential cargo line in the United Arab Emirates.

Musk also promised various Hyperloop projects that didn’t materialize.

Virgin Hyperloop and The Boring Company did not respond to AFP requests for comment.

Critic Alon Levy says the Hyperloop is caught between unrealistic prestige projects over short distances and longer routes that cost too much.

The Abu Dhabi-Dubai route promised by Hyperloop TT is only 130 kilometers long, “not even a route for bullet trains,” he said.

But potential routes like New York to Miami or Chicago would cost around $50 billion to get started, Levy estimates.

– ‘Bring it to life’ –

“You don’t get that from private investors,” he told the AFP news agency.

Levy sees a beam of light – recent designs with longer bends seem to have solved the “barf” problem.

And enthusiasts still exude positivity.

“We’re going to keep doing what we’re doing and we’re going to bring it to life,” Miller said.

But he conceded that his company had been “too optimistic about the timelines.”

He’s now predicting the first city-to-city stretch in five years, but won’t reveal the location.

Geddes is also optimistic about the future, although he also remembered that the promises of the past carried weight.

“We used to say five to ten years,” he said. “That was five years ago. Maybe it’s five to ten years now.”

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#decades #setbacks #Musks #Hyperloop #continues #fascinate

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