Go here and scroll down to "Select historical production vehicles" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_electric_vehicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

Go here and scroll down to "Select historical production vehicles" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_electric_vehicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_electric_vehicl... I grew up in the 70s and saw production electric vehicles that are not on this list. People have been chuckling for a long time and for good reason. It's not that electric vehicles won't eventually be successful -- they must. It's that the time from, "Hey, an electric vehicle would be a good idea" to "Hey, we've figured out all the engineering challenges to make this viable" is longer than the lifetime of most of the companies that entered the fray. Look at the list of vehicles from before 1990. That's the "getting to the market first" list. All gone. Then look at the list from 1990 to 2010. How many of those will be major players in the electric vehicle market? My point is that I'm relatively old for someone on HN and there have been production electric vehicles since well before I was born. They only started to be viable in the last few years -- and even then, we probably need a few more breakthroughs in battery technology before the market settles out. Long distance, super fast trains in tunnels? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C5%AB%C5%8D_Shinkansen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C5%AB%C5%8D_Shinkansen I saw the tunnel the other day. I was surprised that practically the whole damn length of the maglev tracks will be in a tunnel, but it makes total sense. That's been under construction for 10 years. They are optimistically expecting to make a profit in 2026 when "costs stabilise". Will long distance, high speed trains in low pressure tunnels be successful? I have no doubt. Will Hyperloop One be successful? Umm... frozen balls of ice remaining intact in a very hot place probably have a better chance, but I won't say they will definitely fail. If they can secure something like a trillion dollars and invest it wisely over the next 30-40 years, then their chances will improve significantly.