Ambitious businessman Elon Musk implemented many projects, for example, launching rockets from SpaceX Example. But superfast land travel in magnetic levitation capsules will not happen At least not immediately!
According to the media Bloombergsociety Hyperloop is closing its doors for good and currently laying off its last employees.
Too ambitious an idea?
The American billionaire and current boss of Tesla is not his first failure. Launched in 2013, the Hyperloop concept was pretty revolutionary on paper.
THE train on a magnetic cushionthe design of a huge pipe in which a pressurized capsule passes there with passengers, worthy of a science fiction film. Held in the air by magnets, they had to travel at speeds of more than 1200 km/h in a vacuum. At such speeds, the average travel time is divided by 8 compared to an airplane. There is something to dream about!
But even if the project is technically feasible, then the technical limitations are huge. From the very beginning, many engineers and scientists pointed out the weaknesses of the project, such as astronomical energy consumption necessary to create a vacuum in these pipes. The construction of the huge cylindrical plants and the logistics involved were also criticized.
Hyperloop One is shutting down
Today, after more than twelve years of research, the Hyperloop still does not have a working line.
But recently, Bloomberg revealed an important piece of information: the company Hyperloop One simply put the key under the door at the end of the year. According to American media, the company is also in the process of firing the last employees.
Funded for a time by Richard Branson, the founder of the Virgin Group, Hyperloop One successfully tested a single passenger transport in November 2020. But speed has been achieved 172 km/h was very far from the declared 1200 km/h. Another test in real conditions in the Nevada desert, but without passengers, exceeded 387 km/h.
Hyperloop: despite ten years of operation, Elon Musk’s “train of the future” has finally been abandoned.
Hyperloop One, the project’s parent company, failed to win contracts to build the “train of the future.” Movement of mercy pic.twitter.com/Vv6fUm0rYR
โ Jonathan Chan ๎จ ๐ก๐ฃ (@ChanPerco) December 23, 2023
TransPod and HyperloopTT left too?
The Hyperloop will lead to several sub-projects around the world, including one in France: Transpod The Canadian-born company has recently been criticized for delaying the construction of a center in Drues, in central France. If the building permit was approved in 2018, and the first “high-speed tests” were originally planned for 2020. Thus, the initial project to connect Paris with Toulouse in record time seems to have stalled for now.
In Canada, the company has also been working for several years on a 300-kilometer passenger and light freight line between Calgary and Edmonton in the west of the country. The nearly $18 billion project, which Sebastien Gendron, TransPod’s co-founder and CEO, hopes to open “by 2035.”
Another promising Californian company on paper is Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HyperloopTT), also seems to be trading. The company created a test track at a former military base near Toulouse, but nothing since. On his website we can read ” Since 2018, tests have been conducted at this facility to demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the HyperloopTT system and its components in the low-pressure environment of the tube. Regulators from around the world visit the site to observe, learn about the technology and help develop government safety and certification guidelines. ยป
Hyperloop’s only success: moving a vehicle in a test tube at a speed of more than 170 km/h for … 500 meters. No need to worry about our good old TGV!
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Source: Auto Plus
Robert is an experienced journalist who has been covering the automobile industry for over a decade. He has a deep understanding of the latest technologies and trends in the industry and is known for his thorough and in-depth reporting.