Having demonstrated the propulsion system, Hyperloop One is expected to announce the date, sometime next year, of a competition which will determine the location in which the first hyperloop system will be built.
A Los Angeles company called Hyperloop One has received funding to the tune of $80 million in order to develop a futuristic transportation technology. The company plans on conducting a complete system test by the end of this year.
The concept of hyperloop involves placing cargo and passengers in pods which are made to levitate using maglev technology. The pods are placed in low pressure tubes and can typically transit at speeds of upto 1,207 kilometres per hour (750 miles per hour).
Thanks to maglev, the incidence of friction is reduced to a minimum in a city-to-city transportation system. The system will be fully automated and electrically powered.
Elon Musk, the pioneering CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, had earlier suggested that hyperloop would not only be faster but also cheaper and more efficient compared to high-speed railways. Incidentally, a high-speed rail project is currently being constructed in California.
Dispelling comments which goes to suggest that the hyperloop technology is more in the realm of science fiction and is unproven, Rob Lloyd Hyperloop One’s CEO said “It’s real, it’s happening now, and we’re going to demonstrate how this company is making it happen.”
Lloyd’s made these comments on the eve of the first demonstration of the propulsion system in a desert in Las Vegas.
Comparing the hyperloop technology to the emergence of the U.S. railroad system, Lloyd said like its predecessor, the hyperloop technology too could revolutionize the transport system, which ushered in an era of prosperity.
Furthermore, Lloyd announced a competition which will determine the location in which the first Hyperloop One system will be built. The announcement is expected to be sometime next year. It is very likely that early applications will centre around ports with the system replacing trucks and trains which carry cargo from factories and ships to stores.
Executives in Hyperloop One include Shervin Pishvar, a venture capitalist known for his investments in innovative companies such as Airbnb and Uber and Brogan Bambrogan, a former SpaceX engineer.
New investors include Khosla Ventures, Western Technology Investments (WTI), GE Ventures, Fast Digital, 137 Ventures and the French National Rail Company, the force behind high speed railways in Europe.
As per BamBrogan, the company is now focussing on refining the technologies involved so as to bring about cost reductions in constructing the hyperloop.
“We want to deliver all the value that hyperloop can deliver – the safe, the efficient, the on demand, the fast. But, we want to deliver it at a cost basis that is absolutely transformative,” he said.
Currently Hyperloop One is facing competition from a crowdsourced company called Hyperloop Transportation Technologies. In the previous month, the company signed an agreement with the Slovakian government in order to construct a hyperloop that connects Hungary, Slovenia and Austria.
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