Hyperloop lays off half of its employees as it pivots away from passenger travel

> Vacuum travel in a a tube does actually make sense. It may not be viable (yet?) but the idea is sound.

I'm not sure the idea will be viable, ever. Too many problems, not enough rewards.

For example, the problem of a vacuum tube developing a leak. The leak would start an implosion, which then propagates down both directions of the tube at mach-1 speed of sound. The implosion would resemble the continuous crushing of a soda can down the entire length of tube. The outside pressure at sea level compared to the inside (lack of) pressure is too great to be safe for passengers or cargo.

The above problem could in theory be solved using air locks spaced apart to have a chance to mitigate the destruction to a few kilometres where the leak happened. But the idea is not very feasible, the air-locked segments would be several kilometres long, enough to slow a transport capsule to a safe halt, yet long enough to get ahead of the mach-1 speed of implosion. High speed sensor networks would have to cover the the hyper-loop ad infinium.

And don't get me started on material science, in particular thermal expansion of steel. The only way to deal with thermal expansion is by using expansion joins. The problem with expansion joints, see the above part about leaks. The entire track of (above ground) tubing would have to deal with significant expansion/contraction. Like for Dallas Austin the expansion would be well in excess of ~100's of ft.

Then comes the energy requirements to pull and maintain a hard vacuum in very long & wide tubes. The closest thing that comes to mind is the Large Hadron Collider, but that pulls a vacuum by cooling the narrow tube down to cryogenic temps... it's not the same. Hyper-loop would require HUGE amounts of energy to maintain the vacuum. It would be more energy put in than profit that comes out, unless of course the hyperloop is transporting some kind of high value merchandise like kilos of cocaine or whatever. The economics simply isn't there, the engineering isn't there, it's pretty much a terrible idea.

The only good argument for the Hyperloop is a logical fallacy, called "argument from authority". Put another way, the argument goes: since Elon Musk is so amazing, we can suspend our disbelief and trust the idea on the sole basis of whatever perceived accolades (the authority) Elon Musk has gained by being a billionaire entrepreneur. Sure, Elon's a cool dude, very smart, tenacious, etc... but that doesn't stop hyperloop from being a terrible idea.

Also somehow its easier to build self-driving cars than it is to invest in public transportation.

Most consumer goods and the containers themselves are not designed to withstand vacuum, so you cannot have the containers themselves take the role of the pods. They would have to be loaded/unloaded inside the pods. The airlocks at the terminals would also need to be cycled adding to the processing time and making the system less scalable.

The entire system is designed for sending containers one by one in pods, so its throughput is not at all impressive compared to the trains with several tens of railcars.

Not to mention the technical difficulties of reliably maintaining vacuum in hundreds of kilometers of the tunnel. And don’t forget that a single broken seal anywhere on the whole track would bring the whole system to a halt, and would require significant safety intervals between the poss.

As for the speed - the hyperloop’s main advantage - there is relatively little cargo in the world for which shipping time makes a critical difference between 100 km/h train and 2000 km/h hypothetical hyperloop. Reliability, throughout and an established network are much more important, hence why the bulk of world’s shipping is done slowly and reliably by sea.

I was really looking forward to taking it since I read about maglev in Popular Mechanics as a kid, but my flight was 6am and the train didn't start running til 6:30! cab ride it is...

Some freight yes, some freight yes, probably not. Fruit and mail needs to go very fast and is often shipped by airplane. There are a few cases where regular shipping doesn't deliver on time and so an emergency order is air freighted in - at great expense.

I doubt that they can get their costs lower than airplanes. They need to buy land all the way from point A to point B, vs only at airports. Airplanes also run at a partial vacuum (30000 feet) by nature. As such it is hard to see anyone using them instead of something else. Where speed counts airplanes are faster, where speed doesn't count ships and slow trains in air are a cheaper.