What Concerns Me about Hyperloop
I’m not jumping on the Hyperloop bandwagon just yet.
Hyperloop One Inc. held its first test run of its Hyperloop system on Wednesday, but that only includes the sled for the future pod; however, the sled supposedly reaches upwards of 300 mph. It appears the test was mainly to demonstrate the propulsion system.
Ever since Elon Musk’s prophetic vision of a “5th mode” of passenger transportation, people have been tirelessly working to make it a reality. And who wouldn’t be excited about the prospects of a system that could transport you hundreds of miles at 760 mph? Hyperloop One CEO Rob Lloyd even went as far as to call this test, and tests later this year, the next “Kitty Hawk,” referring to the legendary first manned flight by the Wright brothers.
But here’s the thing that no Hyperloop startup will admit: none of them have built a miniature working prototype.
The closest thing we have to a working prototype is a project completed by University of Illinois students, unaffiliated with any Hyperloop startup company.
While the project led by Andrew Horton successfully tested the proposed propulsion system, the tube was not depressurized, and the pods slid on roller bearings instead of utilizing Musk’s air cushion concept. Due to the modifications to simplify the project, the pods only reached about 7 mph, comparable to around 160 mph for a scaled-up version.
No demonstration to date has fully implemented Musk’s concept for a pod to travel through a depressurized tube. Hyperloop One’s demonstration is anticlimactic in that magnetic levitation and propulsion technology are already in use by trains in Japan, China, and Germany. When watching their test run, I don’t know whether to cheer or cry.
It seems that in building an up-to-scale test track first, Hyperloop One and Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) are trying to run before they crawl. And this proves that it’s not from a lack of resources that they don’t have a miniature prototype. Hyperloop One has received tens of millions of dollars from investors, and HTT is empowered from hundreds of individual volunteers. All they have to show for it is sleek graphic models, empty tubes, and test tracks that don’t begin to demonstrate the viability or relevant costs of a completed Hyperloop system.
So my question is: if a group of college students with limited resources can build a working (but simplified) prototype, why can’t these startups? Building a miniature prototype would achieve many goals at once:
Firstly, it would prove that the proposed system, is in fact, viable. Can the Hyperloop actually transport PEOPLE at 760 mph? We all like the idea of the Hyperloop, but we would also like the idea of a spaceship making round-trips to the Moon for $20. Which leads to the next purpose of a miniature prototype.
If the system does work as proposed, the miniature prototype would give a better sense of what it would take to build an up to scale system. This would give the companies a clearer budget target to build a fully operational system between two destinations. As of yet, we only have vague estimates from Musk that a San Francisco-Los Angeles system would cost around $6–7 billion. Utter nonsense. This estimate is based on nothing but pure conjecture, and is meant to be a clear jab at the California High-Speed Rail project. A prototype could also give companies an idea of the operational costs involved with maintaining the system, which leads to the third point.
A miniature prototype would placate investors. If Hyperloop One and other companies want investor money, what better way to do that than to demonstrate a working prototype as soon as possible? It would obviously be much cheaper and easier to build a scaled down, fully functional version of the system than to build a multi-mile test track. This would be so much more meaningful than merely a test sled or artsy passenger stations.
Investors want to know if the system will be profitable, plain and simple. If startups can prove they can operate a system cheaply enough to attract a broad ridership, investors would surely be interested, and the startups would rake in enough cash to build a scaled up test system.
Even the Wright Brothers had smaller prototypes before they performed a manned flight.
So why haven’t Hyperloop One or HTT done that yet? I don’t know, but I don’t think it’s a good sign. It’s a major reason to be skeptical, but only one of many:
- If it will be a depressurized tube system, how will they handle passenger transfers?
- How would the human body handle the physical and psychological effects of being locked in a pod for 30–60 minutes being hurdled up to 760 mph? How long would it take to accelerate to that speed without making people hurl?
- The system needs to be primarily straight, so what about obstructions like mountains or city buildings? It can go through mountains, but what about the danger of an earthquake? Turns have always been an issue for the system.
- Assuming the system can run cheaply using passive magnetic levitation, what about the depressurization system? It must take a huge amount of energy to depressurize hundreds of miles of tube volume.
Most of these questions of mine would be answered with a working miniature prototype. Seeing is believing, and I haven’t seen anything yet.
My theory on why the Hyperloop dream can have great sums of money thrown at it and media fanfare without a single working prototype is that it is branded as a cheaper, ‘market-friendly’ alternative to current transportation tech receiving government support, such as high-speed rail. If you really want free-market solutions to our transportation woes in the US, I’d say it’d be far more effective to deregulate the miserably bureaucratic transportation industry.
