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Hyperloop

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Re: Hyperloop

#501

Post by wavesounds »

btilly wrote: post #386
milesskorpen wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The proposal calls for the line to built alongside I-5, which requires government involvement.

Not alongside. On top of. And all of it needs to be approved for safety in earthquakes. If you're traveling at 600 mph, you do not want to have that tunnel unexpectedly move even a foot sideways during an earthquake.

Not to be nitpicky but if you haven't driven the I-5 theres substantial room between each direction of the freeway so I don't think it will actually be above traffic if that's your concern.

Re: Hyperloop

#502

Post by rossjudson »

slacka wrote: post #290
tptacek wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an argument in favor of a useful HSR system. But politics have resulted California's HSR system being deliberately pessimized; it may do more harm than good to the HSR cause, right?

“The man who moved a mountain was the one who began carrying away small stones.” -Chinese Proverb I've lived in China for over 3 years, and spend countless hours riding the HSR system. HSR combines the speed of a plane, with the cost and convenience of a regular bus. Traveling through the countryside of China at 380km/h made me feel like I was in the future. Coming home and seeing the the sad state of our infrastruct…

I've been on one of the Chinese high speed trains and they are really impressive. The most striking thing about them is how smooth they are -- very little vibration at all, and very quiet. Far more pleasant than air travel, conventional trains, or anything else I've been on.

Sadly, I think the first place a Hyperloop will be built is China. Chances are there are engineers there looking it over now, and figuring they can knock out a test system in a year or two.

Re: Hyperloop

#503

Post by joseph_cooney »

StandardFuture wrote: post #189

God damn it, Elon! It looks amazing but the logistics are just not adding up! 2-minute departure time scales? Good luck getting the future Hyperloop TSA to do that. But, the numbers don't quite crunch for this to be a legitimate business (unless we are talking no returns for 25 years charging customers an average of 1500-3000 dollars per ride .. but the demand is not there for those prices). Idea is awesome .. yes! V…

From memory the departure time scales on the shinkansen are smaller than this...about 90 seconds IIRR.

Re: Hyperloop

#504

Post by epicureanideal »

javajosh wrote: post #476
danvoell wrote: post #87

I think he should start a ticket pre-sale on kickstarter and see if he can be the first person to reach $6 billion for a project.

30 million people donating 200 each...totally doable.

Or 3 million people donating $2000 each for huge discounts on long term access. I would donate $10,000 if the discount was steep enough on long term use and included use of future expansions of the system.

Re: Hyperloop

#505

Post by lessnonymous »

gojomo wrote: post #493
mcintyre1994 wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see, fair enough, cheers for pointing that out. I'm in the UK and we're pretty well connected by rail, I wasn't expecting the alternative to be that ridiculous, just normal slower trains.

Density is destiny. Population densities: 407/km² England 256/km² UK 93/km² California 32/km² USA

2.8/km² Australia

And here you can travel from most parts of Melbourne to most parts of Sydney with just two train changes. One at a Melbourne hub to the interstate trains and one at Sydney to the local system.

Even so, we feel our train systems suck too.

Re: Hyperloop

#506

Post by seanmcdirmid »

dragonwriter wrote: post #448
qohen wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main cost of CAHSR will be the opportunity cost of not having built it. I wonder: this is from an LA Weekly article from 2011 -- I remember it being an eye-opener when I read it back then [1]: The authority had projected that 41 million people annually would ride the train between Anaheim and San Francisco, for example. But currently only 12 million customers fly nonstop on the extremely busy air route between Lo…

> The article goes on to say that Acela gets 3 million riders in the very dense east coast NY/Washington corridor but in less-dense California they were projecting a ridership around 10x of Acela's (!). And...so? California has dense areas in the north and south and a big (relatively) empty gap between them. California HSR is designed to connect those dense areas. The overall density of the state (or the corridor) is…

The question is how many people really need to travel between the Bay Area and SoCal? Right now it is about 12 million trips a year. That would increase if the link is cheaper, but to what economic gain? These two areas are strongly connected economically, not like NYC and DC are.

Re: Hyperloop

#507

Post by iamjustin »

javert wrote: post #428
Anechoic wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe that an experimental tube is going to be somehow magically cheaper and easier to route and build than train tracks. Do you really think the special interests that are making HSR so difficult and expensive would say, "Oh, do whatever you like with your tube."? These are extremely important issues that advocates seem to be glossing over. Putting the guideway on pylons doesn't magically eliminate land is…

> Musk should do what the Germans did with the TR0x series of maglev vehicles Musk has already given more than enough for the world and done more than enough. Somebody should do it, but we should not expect him to do it.

We shouldn't expect him to demonstrate his idea?

Re: Hyperloop

#508

Post by robryan »

lessnonymous wrote: post #505
gojomo wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Density is destiny. Population densities: 407/km² England 256/km² UK 93/km² California 32/km² USA

2.8/km² Australia And here you can travel from most parts of Melbourne to most parts of Sydney with just two train changes. One at a Melbourne hub to the interstate trains and one at Sydney to the local system. Even so, we feel our train systems suck too.

Yes, our high speed rail process is currently on a ridiculous timescale, something like 50 years out. If something isn't slated for major construction works within a single term of government you can pretty much assume it will never happen in its current form.

Re: Hyperloop

#509

Post by thrownaway2424 »

pbreit wrote: post #480
thrownaway2424 wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the same reason that Musk needed a huge, free government loan to get Tesla off the ground: without the government, he'd be less rich.

The government loan was hardly free. Not only did it incur interest, there was an equity component that nearly kicked in had Tesla not had sufficient funds to pay off the loan early.

Right. If Tesla failed, the people own a worthless company. If it succeeds, Musk retains his stake in a valuable company.

Compare what would have happened if Tesla needed to raise $500m from private investment at the start. Musk would have been diluted up front.

Re: Hyperloop

#510

Post by robryan »

joshAg wrote: post #487
mcintyre1994 wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see, fair enough, cheers for pointing that out. I'm in the UK and we're pretty well connected by rail, I wasn't expecting the alternative to be that ridiculous, just normal slower trains.

In the US, rail is optimized for freight, not people.

Australia is the same, here passenger rail between major cities is mostly something old person take as a scenic route. Often it is actually more expensive than flying.
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