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Hyperloop One to shut down

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Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#31

Post by darksaints »

aidenn0 wrote: post #21
tunesmith wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm out of the (hyper)loop... what was he saying did make economic sense then?

It was supposed to be an air-bearing; there would be some sort of fan that would take air from the front of the car, and move it to the back of the car, diverting some fraction to the bottom of the car for it to slide over (think like an air-hockey table).

I work quite a bit with air bearings. There is an inverse relationship with pressure requirements and tolerances. If you want low pressures, you need high tolerances...if you want low tolerances, you need high pressures. There was some fundamental math that could have refuted this idea from the very beginning, but Musk spoke before he calculated.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#32

Post by wahern »

KerrAvon wrote: post #13

There is technology for fast rapid mass transit: high-speed rail. Technology was never the issue here. Political will to fund, approve right-of-way, and build it was always the problem, and Musk never even tried to address that part.

Hyperloop would have been built on pylons, theoretically mitigating the impact of a line cutting across farms or cities, which in the case of CAHSR has caused immeasurable political problems.

I suspect the actual technology within the tube was never Musk's initial concern. Similar to his other industrial endeavors, I think the calculus with Hyperloop had more to do with the economics of being able to manufacture pylons and tube segments offsite for quick assembly onsite, leveraging factory production and avoiding as much as possible site-specific costs such as land grading. And presumably he had in mind repurposing SpaceX technology for welding rocket bodies. Given a cost-effective way to build and put these tubes into place, and some ballpark figures on their characteristics--e.g. how much of a pressure difference they could reliably keep without inflating production costs--figuring out how to actually use them was just an engineering problem, which he then took a first crack at to satisfy himself the overall concept might be feasible.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#33

Post by easton »

martythemaniak wrote: post #10
stuaxo wrote: post #6

It served its purpose of diverting attention (and so funding) from high speed rail, which is a threat to his business of selling cars. https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/1571628269555826688?lan...

High Speed rail attempts have failed everywhere in North America, it has nothing to do with Musk or Hyperloop and everything to do with how incredibly poorly HSR fits into the existing urban fabric of North America. There have been many studies of building a HSR line between Windsor and Quebec City and you just can't make it work.

Brightline exists and is operational in Florida, you can now ride a high speed train from Miami to Orlando (as long as you're okay with 120mph as high speed). They are still expanding it to Tampa too.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#34

Post by toyg »

corethree wrote: post #24
talldatethrow wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from Europe originally, and visit often. And now in California. You could make Highspeed rail FREE and I'm not sure I would take it. I might. Maybe. As soon as it costs what gas costs to get to LA from SF ($100 round trip max, so usually $50-33 a person), there is NOOOO way I am ever taking it. Heck, I still need a way to get around once I get there.. so how would the train ever really work for anyone? Now I'm re…

Why would you not take it when it's free? Makes zero sense.

Cost is not the only factor. For certain social classes, public transport is seen as fundamentally shameful or dangerous, something better left to poor people.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#35

Post by drcross »

Syonyk wrote: post #16
vorticalbox wrote: post #7

Robert Goddard designed a vacuum train in the 1910s, why did Elon think it was going to work a century later?

Because the arrogance of modern Silicon Valley thinking is that "We are better, in every possible way, than older engineers, because we know code. " And Elon Musk seems very, very prone to this sort of thinking (or, at least, his companies do, and I think it comes from him). One example of many is the weird conversations he was having about sonic velocity robots and "lights out dreadnaught" sort of auto factories, wh…

What you call arrogance I call enthusiasm, industrialism and hope for a better future. Your attitude, quite frankly, sucks.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#36

Post by ghaff »

systems_glitch wrote: post #17
KerrAvon wrote: post #13

There is technology for fast rapid mass transit: high-speed rail. Technology was never the issue here. Political will to fund, approve right-of-way, and build it was always the problem, and Musk never even tried to address that part.

When folks suggest a new "changes everything" way to go fast, always remember that we used to run NY to Chicago at 120 MPH on steam power and bolted rails.

You're basically crossing a continental divide on that route and the time is similar to what it was a 100 years ago--which is about 10x what flying takes. (And costs a lot more today than flying.)

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#37

Post by seanmcdirmid »

hnbad wrote: post #26
thechao wrote: post #12

There is a world where we dig tunnels under federal highways, and stick freight trucks down there. They'd run on a monorail, at 120+ mph. Surface vehicles would be dramatically limited in terms of height, width, and length. Maybe people buses could go down there? In my imagination these tunnels are, like, 200' down. Like mole people.

If the US rail network wasn't in such a state of disrepair and freight trains weren't miles long to cut labor costs, you wouldn't even need to dig tunnels for them. That also saves the cost of digging those tunnels and actually making them safe (i.e. having service tunnels, ventilation, fire escapes, fire suppression systems, etc etc). And of course with tunnels you'd want rail anyway because you don't want to be stu…

You would want put in pure electric rail, since you don’t want to ventilate it to handle diesel fumes from the hybrid electric diesel turbine engines so common in the USA. Since the USA’s rail system is barely electrified at all, it would be a huge undertaking.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#38

Post by croes »

grecy wrote: post #18
stuaxo wrote: post #6

It served its purpose of diverting attention (and so funding) from high speed rail, which is a threat to his business of selling cars. https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/1571628269555826688?lan...

> which is a threat to his business of selling cars With 40,000kms of high speed rail [1] (by far the most in the world), China must then have very few electric vehicles. In reality they are the world leader. [2] [1] https://www.statista.com/topics/7534/high-speed-rail-in-chin... [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-17/how-china...

40,000km are too few for a country of the size of China, nit to mention over 1 billion people.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#39

Post by Neikius »

martythemaniak wrote: post #10
stuaxo wrote: post #6

It served its purpose of diverting attention (and so funding) from high speed rail, which is a threat to his business of selling cars. https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/1571628269555826688?lan...

High Speed rail attempts have failed everywhere in North America, it has nothing to do with Musk or Hyperloop and everything to do with how incredibly poorly HSR fits into the existing urban fabric of North America. There have been many studies of building a HSR line between Windsor and Quebec City and you just can't make it work.

A few big cities and long distances in between. Sounds like A perfect country for rail. But oh didn't work. Guess distances are big enough air travel makes more sense. Unless the volume is big enough maybe?

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#40

Post by ForkMeOnTinder »

vorticalbox wrote: post #7

Robert Goddard designed a vacuum train in the 1910s, why did Elon think it was going to work a century later?

fwiw electric cars date back to the late 1800s. There's no reason old ideas can't work well with new tech.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car#Early_development...

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