4 ms·

The author notes that HT wants to focus on moving shipping containers before people. What are examples of physical goods that people would pay a premium to mov

The author notes that HT wants to focus on moving shipping containers before people. What are examples of physical goods that people would pay a premium to move very fast between Los Angeles and Las Vegas (I think it's fair to say two or three times as fast as a courier in a private jet), and which can be quickly bundled together at either end into a big enough batch to make sense to move them in a container?

JumpCrisscross 10y ago
Fresh seafood comes to mind. At least in Phoenix, it's flown in daily at great expense. Other highly perishable luxury foodstuffs would similarly follow, I'd imagine.
- futuremeats 10y ago
  That's what I was thinking, but someone more well-versed in matters lobster-related tells me they do fine driven there in vans. You're looking for something that goes bad in less than 1.5-two hours. Say it takes 30 minutes to get to the hyperloop depot, 30 mins to Vegas, then 30 minutes from the Vegas hyperloop dept to get to the final destination casino or wherever its going. And it needs to be something numerous enough that you could consistently fill a shipping container with it.
  - JumpCrisscross 10y ago
    > You're looking for something that goes bad in less than 1.5-two hours I don't think the target is "goes bad" as much as "degrades in quality to a perceptible–or marketable–degree". Oysters, crab, et cetera (not sure about lobster) taste different, in New York, between the restaurants that make daily fish-market visits and those that skimp to three (or fewer) times a week.
    - ghaff 10y ago
      And, yet, good sushi places in California get fish and shellfish flown in from Tokyo. Also, the tuna and some of the other fish sold in the Tokyo fish market is actually frozen.
      - Govannon 10y ago
        To be fair, the practice of flying in fish from Tsukiji could easily be more related to prestige than quality. There are three major fish markets in Tokyo, and nobody cares about two of them (Kanda and Koto).
        ghaff 10y ago
        And who knows what the upcoming move of Tsukiji will bring :-)
      - mc32 10y ago
        So fresh sushi is less tasty than that made from frozed/aged fish. The "fresh sushi" is more marketing than palate based - so say sushi/sashimi lovers.
jonnycowboy 10y ago
Not to mention, $/kg for cargo (air freight currently) is quite a bit higher than passenger flying.
- protomyth 10y ago
  So, instead of transporting passengers, they go for the more profitable and easier to handle cargo. I am not confident that they will circle back to passengers given the different facilities that are required for people versus cargo.
  - ghaff 10y ago
    Unless you're being sarcastic, "more profitable" cargo? Yes, in the sense that cargo rail is profitable and passenger service is not. But certainly not in terms of pound of thing moved. Cargo rail (and shipping) is profitable because it's such a cost effective way to move high volume and high weight materials that aren't time sensitive.
    - protomyth 10y ago
      I didn't think I wrote that with the ambiguity that you are reading into it. Cargo is cheaper to handle and more profitable than human transport. They realized this and moving into the high speed delivery of cargo. FedEx built a business off low weight, time sensitive delivery. [edit: also note jonnycowboy's comment that I was replying to]
melling 10y ago
The article doesn't say that they are going to build anything between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. I seriously doubt if that's what they had in mind.
- jandrese 10y ago
  LA->NV doesn't make that much sense to me. It seems like you would get a lot more traffic by servicing the San Francisco->San Diego corridor.
Animats 10y ago
What is this fixation with LA-LV? In the 1950s, a monorail was proposed. In the 1980s, a maglev was proposed. High speed rail has been proposed. None were built. As a freight carrier, the Hyperloop has a capacity problem. The stopping distance is huge. So the distance between trains must be huge. Real freight trains have hundreds of cars, but the Hyperloop doesn't do that. The killer problem with the Hyperloop is curve radius. Unless you're a very powerful government, like China's, acquiring the very straight right of way to go any place populated will be tough. Are they building this as a maglev? That means either expensive track or lots of onboard power. Transrapid's maglev works great, but it just costs too much.
aetherson 10y ago
At first glance, I'd say that there isn't much freight that people would pay much of a premium to chop 30 minutes or so off the e2e time. But I guess the concept would be that there's no long-term premium -- that cost/mile is lower than air freight, after the initial (I'm sure insanely expensive) costs to build the track. If the cost/mile was competitive with rail but the e2e time was competitive with air, I expect you could find a lot of demand for it. That's a big if, of course. Longer term, in terms of freight, if the system basically worked and you could build your practices around it, you'd expect to see people delivering goods that don't necessarily have much "freshness" requirement per se in the name of the great god of Shortening Supply Chains, which might even be worth paying a premium for -- but only if there's an extant hyperloop network that you can plan your business around. If the hyperloop is physically basically sound (that is: it works more or less as described) but either the up-front costs are so huge or the operating costs are higher than expected that you have to long-term pay a premium over air, I'd expect it would have some success as a people-mover, even if the first freight route ended up being unprofitable.
- Sakiina_ 10y ago
  If the Hyperloop had a very predictable timeline compared to some feight or other transport, it might make more sense to use it, if the lower deviation from leadtime lead to reduced safety stock inventory costs.
jameshart 10y ago
Maybe they're skipping LA-Vegas and scaling straight to the obvious moneymaking scenario: getting Mission burritos to New York City. http://idlewords.com/2007/04/the_alameda_weehawken_burrito_tunnel.htm http://idlewords.com/2007/04/the_alameda_weehawken_burrito_t...
10dpd 10y ago
Organ transport.

JumpCrisscross 10y ago

Fresh seafood comes to mind. At least in Phoenix, it's flown in daily at great expense. Other highly perishable luxury foodstuffs would similarly follow, I'd imagine.

futuremeats 10y ago
That's what I was thinking, but someone more well-versed in matters lobster-related tells me they do fine driven there in vans. You're looking for something that goes bad in less than 1.5-two hours. Say it takes 30 minutes to get to the hyperloop depot, 30 mins to Vegas, then 30 minutes from the Vegas hyperloop dept to get to the final destination casino or wherever its going. And it needs to be something numerous enough that you could consistently fill a shipping container with it.
- JumpCrisscross 10y ago
  > You're looking for something that goes bad in less than 1.5-two hours I don't think the target is "goes bad" as much as "degrades in quality to a perceptible–or marketable–degree". Oysters, crab, et cetera (not sure about lobster) taste different, in New York, between the restaurants that make daily fish-market visits and those that skimp to three (or fewer) times a week.
  - ghaff 10y ago
    And, yet, good sushi places in California get fish and shellfish flown in from Tokyo. Also, the tuna and some of the other fish sold in the Tokyo fish market is actually frozen.
    - Govannon 10y ago
      To be fair, the practice of flying in fish from Tsukiji could easily be more related to prestige than quality. There are three major fish markets in Tokyo, and nobody cares about two of them (Kanda and Koto).
      - ghaff 10y ago
        And who knows what the upcoming move of Tsukiji will bring :-)
    - mc32 10y ago
      So fresh sushi is less tasty than that made from frozed/aged fish. The "fresh sushi" is more marketing than palate based - so say sushi/sashimi lovers.

jonnycowboy 10y ago

Not to mention, $/kg for cargo (air freight currently) is quite a bit higher than passenger flying.

protomyth 10y ago
So, instead of transporting passengers, they go for the more profitable and easier to handle cargo. I am not confident that they will circle back to passengers given the different facilities that are required for people versus cargo.
- ghaff 10y ago
  Unless you're being sarcastic, "more profitable" cargo? Yes, in the sense that cargo rail is profitable and passenger service is not. But certainly not in terms of pound of thing moved. Cargo rail (and shipping) is profitable because it's such a cost effective way to move high volume and high weight materials that aren't time sensitive.
  - protomyth 10y ago
    I didn't think I wrote that with the ambiguity that you are reading into it. Cargo is cheaper to handle and more profitable than human transport. They realized this and moving into the high speed delivery of cargo. FedEx built a business off low weight, time sensitive delivery. [edit: also note jonnycowboy's comment that I was replying to]

melling 10y ago

The article doesn't say that they are going to build anything between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. I seriously doubt if that's what they had in mind.

jandrese 10y ago
LA->NV doesn't make that much sense to me. It seems like you would get a lot more traffic by servicing the San Francisco->San Diego corridor.

Animats 10y ago

What is this fixation with LA-LV? In the 1950s, a monorail was proposed. In the 1980s, a maglev was proposed. High speed rail has been proposed. None were built. As a freight carrier, the Hyperloop has a capacity problem. The stopping distance is huge. So the distance between trains must be huge. Real freight trains have hundreds of cars, but the Hyperloop doesn't do that. The killer problem with the Hyperloop is curve radius. Unless you're a very powerful government, like China's, acquiring the very straight right of way to go any place populated will be tough. Are they building this as a maglev? That means either expensive track or lots of onboard power. Transrapid's maglev works great, but it just costs too much.

aetherson 10y ago

At first glance, I'd say that there isn't much freight that people would pay much of a premium to chop 30 minutes or so off the e2e time. But I guess the concept would be that there's no long-term premium -- that cost/mile is lower than air freight, after the initial (I'm sure insanely expensive) costs to build the track. If the cost/mile was competitive with rail but the e2e time was competitive with air, I expect you could find a lot of demand for it. That's a big if, of course. Longer term, in terms of freight, if the system basically worked and you could build your practices around it, you'd expect to see people delivering goods that don't necessarily have much "freshness" requirement per se in the name of the great god of Shortening Supply Chains, which might even be worth paying a premium for -- but only if there's an extant hyperloop network that you can plan your business around. If the hyperloop is physically basically sound (that is: it works more or less as described) but either the up-front costs are so huge or the operating costs are higher than expected that you have to long-term pay a premium over air, I'd expect it would have some success as a people-mover, even if the first freight route ended up being unprofitable.

Sakiina_ 10y ago
If the Hyperloop had a very predictable timeline compared to some feight or other transport, it might make more sense to use it, if the lower deviation from leadtime lead to reduced safety stock inventory costs.

jameshart 10y ago

Maybe they're skipping LA-Vegas and scaling straight to the obvious moneymaking scenario: getting Mission burritos to New York City. http://idlewords.com/2007/04/the_alameda_weehawken_burrito_tunnel.htm http://idlewords.com/2007/04/the_alameda_weehawken_burrito_t...

10dpd 10y ago

Organ transport.