Hyperloop: A cheat sheet – Info Innovation

Hyperloop is potentially the next big leap forward in transportation, promising to be faster and cheaper than air travel. However, at present it only exists in theory, and some remain sceptical about Hyperloop’s commercially viability.

This cheat sheet is an introduction to Hyperloop. The article will be updated as the fledgling technology develops.

SEE: All of TechRepublic’s cheat sheets and smart person’s guides

Executive summary

• What is Hyperloop? A vision for a ground transport system that would travel faster than an airliner at a fraction of the cost.
• Why does Hyperloop matter? Because hundreds of millions of dollars has been invested in designing these potentially revolutionary transport systems.
• Who does Hyperloop affect? Everyone. Hyperloop routes have been proposed across the globe.
• Who are Hyperloop’s competitors? Virgin Hyperloop One and Hyperloop Transportation Technologies are the major organizations working to build Hyperloop systems, while The Boring Company is trying to reduce the cost of building Hyperloop tunnels.
• When is the Hyperloop happening? Hyperloop One plans to have three Hyperloop systems in service by 2021, but no working systems have been created to date.

SEE: Travel and Business Expense Policy (Tech Pro Research)

What is the Hyperloop?

Hyperloop is a vision for a ground-transport system that would travel faster than a commercial airliner and at a fraction of the price, popularized by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.

The transport system would carry passengers and freight on board a vehicle travelling at up to 760mph. These fantastically high speeds would be made possible by two key differences to modern trains. The vehicle would be raised above the track, using either magnetic levitation or a cushion of pressurized air, removing resistance as the wheels turned. Secondly, the vehicle would travel inside a tube where most of the air had been pumped out, massively reducing the speed lost to friction.

Hyperloop is a concept, one that Musk has heavily promoted in the hope that a company or research group will bring the system to fruition. Since Musk’s companies Tesla and SpaceX published papers outlining the Hyperloop Alpha system in 2013, a variety of commercial companies have begun developing their own Hyperloop systems, with the biggest being Virgin Hyperloop One and Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT). While these systems were inspired by Musk’s 2013 paper they differ in design.

Hyperloop test systems have suspended the partial-vacuum tube above the ground, although another option would be for the tube to run through a tunnel. Hyperloop champion Musk has even founded his own tunnelling business, The Boring Company, with the aim of driving down the prohibitive $1bn per mile cost of tunnel construction.

Maryland’s Department of Transportation has given conditional approval for The Boring Company to begin construction of a Hyperloop tunnel from Baltimore to Washington, and the firm also has plans plans to build a similar tunnel under Culver City, California.

In 2018, The Boring Company raised $113m in equity to support its plans to dig tunnels.

Additional resources

Why does Hyperloop matter?

Because it has the potential to revolutionize transport.

Hyperloop’s potential 760mph top speed dwarves that of existing high-speed train networks, such the 200mph Japanese bullet train, and the 267mph Shanghai maglev train.

Hyperloop routes could massively reduce the time it takes to travel between major cities: 30 minutes from San Francisco to LA, 50 minutes from London to Edinburgh, eight minutes from Helsinki to Tallinn, 55 minutes from Melbourne to Sydney. And while air travel costs hundreds of dollars, advocates for Hyperloop technology say journeys could cost far less.

SEE: Tech and the future of transportation (ZDNet special report) | Download the report as a PDF (TechRepublic)

The original Hyperloop concept paper suggested Los Angeles to San Francisco would cost $20, and more recently the CEO of Hyperloop transport company ET3 posited a $50 trip between the US and India.

It’s also potentially feasible. Hyperloop One has attracted more than $210m from investors, most recently $50m of Series C funding, and has engaged more than 260 engineers and other staff to build the world’s first Hyperloop system. It has also appointed Virgin founder Richard Branson as its chairman. Branson believes the technology has the potential to “transport freight at the speed flight”.

A study run by Hyperloop One found the cost of building and operating a 500km Hyperloop network between Helsinki and Stockholm would be competitive with that of high-speed rail systems.

That’s not to say that Hyperloop doesn’t have critics in the transportation industry. The proposals have been attacked for being unproven, likely far more expensive than projected and impractical.

A common criticism is that travel on board a Hyperloop vehicle would be hugely uncomfortable, with passengers submitted to nausea-inducing levels of g-force, approximately double what they would experience during take-off on a commercial flight. Another potential problem is that the vehicle would be travelling at such high speed that any disturbance in the cushion of air the vehicle sits upon could result in severe bumps, again causing discomfort.

However, changes to Hyperloop designs since the initial concept have lessened g-forces, with Hyperloop One saying they would be no worse than take-off, saying additional mitigations would make the journey as smooth as riding an elevator.

Musk has even announced spin-off projects to Hyperloop. Called The Loop, his vision is for all-electric, subterranean pods travelling at up to 150mph that transport up to 16 passengers at a time. Musk suggests the Loop could travel between downtown LA and LAX airport terminals in 8 minutes at a cost of $1.

Additional resources

Who does Hyperloop affect?

Potentially everyone. Hyperloop transport systems have the potential to usher in an era of cheap, and convenient long-distance travel across the world, as well as offer a low-carbon emission alternative to flying.

Domestic travel could also be transformed. If fast and cheap Hyperloop systems do become a reality then remote regions could suddenly become viable places for commuters to live, reducing demand for housing in already overcrowded cities and improving job opportunities in rural areas.

Hyperloop routes are being considered across the world. Virgin Hyperloop One has signed an agreement with the Indian government that could see a route built that will allow passengers, and possibly cargo, to travel between the Indian cities of Pune and Mumbai in 25 minutes. Under the agreement the route would be built within seven years.

And while the original Hyperloop concept showed a route from Greater Los Angeles to the San Francisco Bay area, one of the most detailed route proposals to date has been Hyperloop One’s outline of a 500km link between the Swedish capital Stockholm and the Finnish capital Helsinki.

SEE: Hyperloop: Take a trip into the future of transport (TechRepublic gallery)

Hyperloop One has published nine potential European routes, connecting 75 million people in 44 cities and spanning 5,000km. Worldwide, Hyperloop One has a shortlist of 10 potential routes, and has already entered into a public-private partnership with the Colorado Department of Transportation to conduct a feasibility study into building a 360-mile route linking Cheyenne with Denver and Pueblo.

HTT is also making inroads in its bid to develop a working Hyperloop system, and recently signed a deal to launch a feasibility study into proposed routes between Cleveland and Chicago in the US. The agreement with the North Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency and the Illinois’ Department of Transportation will see the HTT and the public bodies examine various options to connect the cities using a Hyperloop system.

The agreement is one of several HTT has with other public organizations worldwide, including bodies in Europe and India. As part of those arrangements, HTT is working with authorities in the Czech Republic and Slovakia to explore whether a track could be built between the two nations’ capitals. More recently, HTT revealed it will build a 10km test track in China, in the province of province of Guizhou.

However, these routes will only be completed if commercial Hyperloop systems prove to be viable. To date, no organization has produced a working Hyperloop system, and there have been earlier failed attempts to create a sealed tube train system. In 1864, the Crystal Palace atmospheric railway, shut down after only a few months of operation. However, technology has advanced so far beyond these crude 19th century efforts that modern systems are incomparable.

Additional resources

Who are Hyperloop’s competitors?

A number of firms are competing to be the first to realize Musk’s vision.

As well as Hyperloop One and HTT, another notable organization engaged in designing systems is TransPod, which is aiming to build a computer-controlled system that operates at more than 1,000km/h.

Alongside these efforts, the Evacuated Tube Transport Technologies (ET3) Global Alliance represents a consortium of organizations that have been working on realizing a system similar to Hyperloop since the late 1990s. Unlike the near-supersonic travel plans of the other vacuum-tube travel firms, ET3 is seeking to create a network of smaller pods that travel at about 375 mph. The group wants to build a tube network for a tenth of the cost of high-speed rail and a quarter of the cost of a freeway.

And despite Musk saying he initially didn’t have time to develop a Hyperloop system, he has since created a Hyperloop division within SpaceX. To help spur on progress, the firm has launched the Hyperloop Pod Competition, which tasks competitors with designing a prototype pod for a Hyperloop test system. In summer 2018 a team of competitors from Technical University of Munich accelerated a Hyperloop pod to 290mph on a 1.2km-long test track.

Additional resources

When is Hyperloop happening?

Not for a while. To date the only Hyperloop systems that have been built are small-scale test facilities, including one created by SpaceX for other firms to test Hyperloop pods.

Hyperloop One says it has validated various subsystems and began testing its entire system in May this year, when it fired up its Development Loop test system in the Nevada Desert. So far it has successfully accelerated a magnetically levitated capsule to almost 240mph through the 500-meter long tube. After successfully validating the technology, Hyperloop One plans to work towards having three Hyperloop systems in service by 2021.

Meanwhile, HTT plans to have the first section of 10-km track on the border of Abu Dhabi and Dubai operational by 2020, in time for the opening of the Expo 2020 festival in Dubai. Ahead of then, HTT intends to build Europe’s first hyperloop track in 2019, when it hopes to complete a 1km test track near Toulouse in France.

Additional resources