Isn't hyperloop not supposed to be efficient unless it runs over 1000 miles or something like that? It has to basically ride in the valley of a soundwave and to get up to speed and back to rest takes the majority of the time and a good amount of runway.
Hyperloop Gets Test Track in California
31–40 of 116 posts
Re: Hyperloop Gets Test Track in California
#32This is hard for me to do because 1) I probably respect Musk more than any living engineer, 2) I can't stand the CHSRA and their incompetence, and 3) I'm arguing from my comparatively unsuccessful keyboard against someone who is in every way my superior when it comes to engineering and business, and I know I'm gonna be the one to look like a fool here. But I'm going to do it anyway and try as best as I can to avoid t…
If the hyperloop delivers on the promise of being substantially faster than air travel for its route, then presumably that makes a terminals-only approach more viable than it would be for HSR. (Which isn't to fully argue against your post).
Re: Hyperloop Gets Test Track in California
#33"If the position of the wall deviates from straightness by a few thousandths of an inch, you could crash ... if you lose the vacuum in the tube, everybody in the tube will crash ... the vehicle's compressor ... can't fail, or the pods will crash ... The 5-mile test track is estimated to cost about $100 million, which Hyperloop Transportation Technologies hopes to pay for with its initial public offering (IPO) later t…
Exactly. How can you do an IPO without any earnings? NYSE requires at least $10 mil over 3 years before they even list a company - I'm assuming other exchanges are similar. And if they don't list it on a major exchange, I doubt they can raise that amount of money...
Re: Hyperloop Gets Test Track in California
#34This is hard for me to do because 1) I probably respect Musk more than any living engineer, 2) I can't stand the CHSRA and their incompetence, and 3) I'm arguing from my comparatively unsuccessful keyboard against someone who is in every way my superior when it comes to engineering and business, and I know I'm gonna be the one to look like a fool here. But I'm going to do it anyway and try as best as I can to avoid t…
Now combine Hyperloop with self driven cars that you can take at your convenience in both ends to arrive to your destination and most of the problems you stated seem easy to overcome.
Probably in a few years, when the hyperloops are ready, owning a car won't be as usual as now, but you'll be able to pick a self driven one paying per mile or a fixed per monthly quota.
Re: Hyperloop Gets Test Track in California
#35Sigh "The 5-mile test track is estimated to cost about $100 million, which Hyperloop Transportation Technologies hopes to pay for with its initial public offering (IPO) later this year, according to Navigant's blog." Run away, run far far away. They might as well do a kickstarter. Seriously, what sort of "business" is a 5 mile test track? Lets say you charged $25 for a "5 minute ride on the hyperloop!" and you got 8…
As an IPO this sounds similar to most biotech/pharma startups. These companies routinely IPO in the $50-100 million range when all they have is a patent, some promising data but no approved clinical trials and no business. Of course it's different because there's a clear post-IPO acquisition market for biotechs. Not quite as clear who would buy Hyperloop if it's proven to work...
It seems to be related to how startups are suddenly valuated at billions without much of a moat or intrinsic value. Just for having "users".
Re: Hyperloop Gets Test Track in California
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thermal expansion is not really an issue that gets worse with distance, as the track can simply be made from independent segments connected with expansion joints. The issue is being able to cross from segment A to segment B not the number of such segments. In other words if it works on a test track it scales just fine, but getting that first connector to work is the hard part. Earthquakes require active dampening whi…
But don't we have a window of minutes to shut down the system in case of an earthquake? I thought we could get advance warning from P waves. (This doesn't work if you're in the epicenter, unfortunately.) If the car gets badly damaged, but the passenger stays alive, and the system can be fixed in a reasonable amount of time, then this is fine performance for a major earthquake event. High speed trains have similar per…
> But don't we have a window of minutes to shut down the system in case of an earthquake?
No.
> I thought we could get advance warning from P waves. (This doesn't work if you're in the epicenter, unfortunately.)
Yes, but the advance warning is on the order of seconds, not minutes (per Wikipedia, for deep, distant, large earthquakes, 60-90 seconds is possible, but that's still at most a minute and a half.)
Re: Hyperloop Gets Test Track in California
#37> The problem with traveling in an evacuated tube is, if you lose the vacuum in the tube, everybody in the tube will crash Wouldn't that be a "crash" into a gradually rising air preassure? Something like a smooth deacceleration.
I would not call it gradually rising. Pods would be moving at huge speeds and then hit viscuos fluid (compared with vacuum)
It would be like hitting a wall. Pod should be constructed like supersonic jet to avoid crash.
Re: Hyperloop Gets Test Track in California
#38> The problem with traveling in an evacuated tube is, if you lose the vacuum in the tube, everybody in the tube will crash Wouldn't that be a "crash" into a gradually rising air preassure? Something like a smooth deacceleration.
I wouldn't worry about an air valve being left open quite as much as the vacuum being broken because a big chunk of concrete (or whatever) is now sucked into the tube in the path of the train. Perhaps in the very unlikely event it ever rains again in California, water in the tube could be an issue, or lightning damage. That brings up the logical question of how many customers you'll have if none of them have any wate…
Yeah because CA is going to depopulate because of the drought. Come on be realistic.
Re: Hyperloop Gets Test Track in California
#39The article makes it sound like a flea could come in there and kill everyone.
Re: Hyperloop Gets Test Track in California
#40This is hard for me to do because 1) I probably respect Musk more than any living engineer, 2) I can't stand the CHSRA and their incompetence, and 3) I'm arguing from my comparatively unsuccessful keyboard against someone who is in every way my superior when it comes to engineering and business, and I know I'm gonna be the one to look like a fool here. But I'm going to do it anyway and try as best as I can to avoid t…
If the hyperloop delivers on the promise of being substantially faster than air travel for its route, then presumably that makes a terminals-only approach more viable than it would be for HSR. (Which isn't to fully argue against your post).
That is true. A terminals-only Hyperloop would definitely capture more of the market share than a terminals-only HSR.
I'm assuming you already acknowledge this, but successful marketing involves positioning to avoid competition and attempt monopoly on the market segment (It seems Thiel is the latest to rebrand this concept). Low-cost stops at minor intermediate cities is a competitive advantage that no airline would ever be able to compete with, as the costs of takeoff and landing are huge relative to the cost of the trip.
Major city termini > 300mi apart, however, is a huge competitive advantage for airlines. No matter how fast you get, you are always going to give up some market share to airlines on more marginal considerations like schedule flexibility, seat size/comfort, baggage limitations, etc. That is a huge and potentially very expensive rabbit hole for competition that a city-to-small-town transportation system can mostly ignore.