Share your Thoughts on Hyperloop

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Good idea but can’t directly invest in that kind of infrastructure yet.

True, but we can invest in say Virgin, which is advancing significantly. Another factor would be for example, the impact on railway companies and other logistic companies. In the EU the most one that comes to mind would be lufthansa.

I would recommend don’t get baited by buzzwords in any area especially if it has Richard Branson behind it :slight_smile: He is a master of jumping on the hype band wagons and promoting himself as the locomotive

First of, hyperloop from Elon Musk’s white paper is not a new idea, it has been around for several decades and his whitepaper does not add anything or improve the idea. It just made the idea popular well because it’s Elon Musk dammit. When people point out that we don’t have the technology to build such a thing, fans will reply “its Elon Musk dammit” (well to be precise we DO have the technology but not for building this safely over miles and miles)

2nd Virgin Hyperloop is not the same as Musk’s Hyperloop. One runs in a vacuum like levitating field, while the other is on mag rails. But since “hyper loop” is not a trade mark or a define technology you can use it as it pleases your heart. So virgin hyperloop is just another maglev train. Josh Giegel would say “yes it is a maglev train but we developed a new way of xxx”

There are already operational maglev trains in germany, china and japan that are much (much) faster than the virgin hyperloop. And I am talking about operational, aka usual daily speeds, not the “record tests” etc. When the questions points out to this Branson or Giegel would say “but our trains will go 600+/800+/900+ mph (depending on interview and their mood on that day)”

I am now going to link to a video but some disclaimers: I hate this thunderfoot guy. I hate his attitude his presentation, his way of hammering on obvious points he made 20 times more than he should.

but…
he is just taking an engineering and scientific point of view vs hype, and he is most of the times accurate.

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I like the top comment on that Bloomberg video :joy:

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This could never get built in the UK. Too much corruption and mismanagement.

If they said it cost ÂŁ1 billion it would be ÂŁ20 billion and only a fraction of the proposed length.

So long as David Cameron and his mates make their millions its ok.

The physics doesn’t add up, couldn’t depressurise such a massive volume and keep it that way

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There are many other problems before politics, like laws of nature :slight_smile:

If we talk about politics there are barely any (if at all) high speed rail ways in US, and no maglev at all. So they built a prototype tube (reiterating that it is maglev and not vacuum!) in vegas and this will get adopted across US? :slight_smile:

Remember we are talking about a country where farmers are not allowed to repair their tractors because it infringes copyrights of the companies that produces them.

And Virgin hyperloop is collecting investment on the premise of changing the world? It is a very easy “avoid at all costs” flag for me.