Hyperloop Freight is a Joke
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Hyperloop Freight is a Joke
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Re: Hyperloop Freight is a Joke
#2I always come to these hyperloop criticisms expecting to find some sort of fatal flaw in the physics of energy efficient supersonic travel. But to my surprise, they instead tend to be pessimists saying things like, "You'll never get past my friends: the regulators, the government bureaucrats, and especially the lawyers!. We will drive up your costs and make you look foolish".
First, no one said that designing this thing in the USA means it has to be deployed in the USA. Countries without common law legal systems get around these unnecessary costs much easier.
Second, if these are seriously the only objections, then thank god we are actually building this thing. I could see complaints if it were some $100 billion publicly funded project, but the fact that less than $1 billion in private capital has already gone so far into demonstrating the technological feasibility of such an innovative transportation mechanism is a huge win.
Re: Hyperloop Freight is a Joke
#3[deleted]
Re: Hyperloop Freight is a Joke
#4I always come to these hyperloop criticisms expecting to find some sort of fatal flaw in the physics of energy efficient supersonic travel. But to my surprise, they instead tend to be pessimists saying things like, "You'll never get past my friends: the regulators, the government bureaucrats, and especially the lawyers!. We will drive up your costs and make you look foolish". First, no one said that designing this th…
I dunno... I'd feel much more comfortable if all humanities smartest technical people were trying to make the next whatsapp clone /s
Re: Hyperloop Freight is a Joke
#5I always come to these hyperloop criticisms expecting to find some sort of fatal flaw in the physics of energy efficient supersonic travel. But to my surprise, they instead tend to be pessimists saying things like, "You'll never get past my friends: the regulators, the government bureaucrats, and especially the lawyers!. We will drive up your costs and make you look foolish". First, no one said that designing this th…
Reading through the criticisms the consensus is "sure, this can work if you allocate 10-100x more money than estimated." I'm not sure if it's truly innovative if it costs more, places considerable stress (up to 0.5g!) on the rider/cargo (what the author calls a "barf ride"). The analysis picks apart the touted benefits of additional speed when ultimately the capacity is lower and it takes longer to depart. In the case of cargo, the author argues that the "last mile" of cargo takes the longest, and as such there's little benefit to sending it at 1200kph if it then needs to be offloaded and trucked around anyways.
To summarize:
- construction costs are underestimated or completely wrong
- capacity is lower than standard HSR
- Hyperloop claims power usage is higher for HSR than it actually is
- forces aren't adequately accounted for even with canting
- assuming perfect canting the pylons must take the additional force
- the majority of travel time is to/from the station + security screening.
To me, it seems like it's optimizing for the wrong section of the trip.
Re: Hyperloop Freight is a Joke
#6The author spends the first 2 paragraphs discussing how existing rail and pylon technology wouldn't work for the hyperloop. I find this to be short sighted as it seems entirely reasonable to use different "rail" and "pylon" designs for the hyperloop. Surely engineers might come up with a different solution for a different problem?
Re: Hyperloop Freight is a Joke
#7I always come to these hyperloop criticisms expecting to find some sort of fatal flaw in the physics of energy efficient supersonic travel. But to my surprise, they instead tend to be pessimists saying things like, "You'll never get past my friends: the regulators, the government bureaucrats, and especially the lawyers!. We will drive up your costs and make you look foolish". First, no one said that designing this th…
Pessimism seems to be the default for the HN hivemind. Would be cool if we all just encouraged everyone working on moonshots.
Re: Hyperloop Freight is a Joke
#8I always come to these hyperloop criticisms expecting to find some sort of fatal flaw in the physics of energy efficient supersonic travel. But to my surprise, they instead tend to be pessimists saying things like, "You'll never get past my friends: the regulators, the government bureaucrats, and especially the lawyers!. We will drive up your costs and make you look foolish". First, no one said that designing this th…
Aren't the acceleration figures a criticism of the physics?
Same with the argument about centralization. It's a practical non starter if sticking the load on a truck that just goes to the destination is faster than shifting the load off the truck onto the hyperloop and then back onto a truck.
Re: Hyperloop Freight is a Joke
#9I always come to these hyperloop criticisms expecting to find some sort of fatal flaw in the physics of energy efficient supersonic travel. But to my surprise, they instead tend to be pessimists saying things like, "You'll never get past my friends: the regulators, the government bureaucrats, and especially the lawyers!. We will drive up your costs and make you look foolish". First, no one said that designing this th…
I dunno... I'd feel much more comfortable if all humanities smartest technical people were trying to make the next whatsapp clone /s
Maybe in elementary school people should get high marks for effort. I don't know.
But in the case of a company raising funding and claiming it wants to build a ton of subsidized infrastructure to service the public, it isn't the case that we should say, "This is better than some more vacuous application of the money." Because it's not at all clear that Hyperloop is actually a good plan to reintroduce high speed rail into America when so many problems keep coming to light about it.
Re: Hyperloop Freight is a Joke
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
I dunno... I'd feel much more comfortable if all humanities smartest technical people were trying to make the next whatsapp clone /s
Maybe in elementary school people should get high marks for effort. I don't know. But in the case of a company raising funding and claiming it wants to build a ton of subsidized infrastructure to service the public, it isn't the case that we should say, "This is better than some more vacuous application of the money." Because it's not at all clear that Hyperloop is actually a good plan to reintroduce high speed rail…
Hyperloop is definitely vacuous..