6 ms·

Elon Musk’s Hyperloop Becomes Reality as Agreements Secured in California

179 points by halfimmortal 11y ago

codeulike 11y ago
One thing is clear: Hyperloop is here to stay — as long as these early prototypes function according to plan Hmm, author might not be familiar with how prototypes work. I think its a great idea though, hope they get somewhere with it.
- BinaryIdiot 11y ago
  Everything is here to stay...as long as it is here to stay! (That bothered me too). Reminds me of the whole "20% of the time it works every time".
- threeseed 11y ago
  Even if it was a rock solid, proven solution major construction projects almost never go to plan.
jusben1369 11y ago
So you could build dedicated infrastructure that within 25 years might meaningfully move people and/or goods between two points at 500 mph to 800 mph via a single tube. Or you can move to complete self driving cars and trucks that without the risk of human error could travel on the existing infrastructure (in many case 2 - 5 lanes wide) at 200 - 300 mph within the same timeframe or shorter. I think self driving electric vehicles on the nation's roadways make the hyperloop at best something like Amtrak today in the US. Valuable and profitable only a few short routes/use cases. EDIT: I do think we'll solve for 200 - 300 mph in 20 - 25 years. But insert 150 - 200 mph. The main premise is we're not going to build multi billion new infrastructure when a "good enough" solution is organically evolving. Same reason why we don't have high speed trains in the US.
- falcolas 11y ago
  > at 200 - 300 mph What supercar are you looking at which is capable of this?
  - jp555 11y ago
    Yeah I thought the same thing. Don't the Veyron's tires wear out in like 50km at top speed?
- yenda 11y ago
  Now imagine the 2 techs combined, hyperloops to link major hubs at the speed of sound and self driving cars for everything else.
- ghaff 11y ago
  For that matter, so long as we're having blue sky thinking involving untold billions of dollars of infrastructure, you might as well bring in new airports well out of the urban centers because that's what hyperloop is likely to be anyway.
- Cthulhu_ 11y ago
  Fast cars like that already exist, the main problem with those is that thanks to drag (air + surface), they become really uneconomical at higher speeds. 800 of the Bugatti Veyron's 1000 BHP only kicks in above 200 kph, maybe later - that's how much extra power is needed to squeeze out the last bit of performance to reach that max speed. Do that times the amount of cars, and you see the problem there. Although it probably would work if the cars drove in a partially evacuated tunnel. But then you wouldn't have the downforce needed to get the cars through corners at those speeds. If you put the cars on monorails though, maybe...
  - simonh 11y ago
    You could call it the hypercarloop.
  - Shivetya 11y ago
    I would think fully electric buses on dedicated roadways would be cheaper and more flexible in the end. Automated driving is coming closer and the best uses are for those which travel well marked and maintained routes, hence long distance trucking, buses, and the like. It certainly would be cheaper than building any type of elevated rail system. However with most transportation projects rail has way to much allure even when its financially stupid. Just look at the costs of some light rail projects in our cities and it never makes sense.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
apsec112 11y ago
Sadly, none of the stuff I've seen on Hyperloop addresses the civil engineering problems brought up by Alon Levy and others (https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2013/08/13/loopy-ideas-are-fine-if-youre-an-entrepreneur/ https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2013/08/13/loop...). In short: - The Hyperloop paper doesn't mention how trains would cross San Francisco Bay, or include a cost estimate for doing so. A new bridge? A new tunnel? Both would add greatly to the $6 billion cost estimate. - That $6 billion estimate also assumes that elevated concrete pylons can be built for much cheaper than any other project, with no mention of how. - The proposed track doesn't go to downtown LA; it ends at Sylmar, which is still ~25 miles from downtown and even further from most of the LA area. A 30 minute ride becomes much less exciting when it takes another hour or more to reach your real destination. - With the proposed 30-second headway, the system's capacity is only about 25% of a high-speed rail line, and 30 seconds still violates the crap out of typical safety standards (you can't run trains too close together without risking a collision if you can't brake quickly enough). - There are no intermediate stations; this is obviously a problem for the Central Valley, but it makes life inconvenient for plenty of other people too. Eg. someone in San Jose (pop. ~1 million, greater than SF's) would need to spend an extra hour or more getting to San Francisco vs. a station in San Jose itself.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  Actually the paper answers the question of how it would cross the bay--it wouldn't. The proposed "San Francisco" terminus is in the East Bay (IIRC, pretty far east, as well). A significant part of the cost savings of the route proposed as an alternative to the HSR route cones from, unlike HSR, not actually going anywhere near the urban centers on either the SF or LA end.
  - jfb 11y ago
    Hayward, I think. This is an interesting definition of "reality", and hyperloop is a deeply unserious Elon Musk Gedankenexperiment that's only given column inches because of the deeply unserious nature of what passes for journalism among the lickspittle shoeshine boys of Silicon Valley wannabes.
hownottowrite 11y ago
"Back in August 2013, long before Tesla..." Long? It's not even two years ago...
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
  - trsohmers 11y ago
    That's why you read the first sentence of the article... "long before Tesla unveiled its plans to offer autopilot features on every new car..." Plus the roadster shipped to actual consumers from 2008 through 2012, and the model S started shipping in 2012.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - _mulder_ 11y ago
    Please read AT LEAST the very first line of the article before commenting.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
JonFish85 11y ago
Agreements secured do not a reality make. It's one of the very first steps, now to be followed by a whole bunch more. It's a misleading headline, and I reject the notion out of hand. Running up the "mission accomplished" poster now is ridiculous. Before it becomes a "reality", there are some much larger hurdles to clear. Once they overrun their budget by 2x, complete their environmental surveys, get each town to sign off on land rights, get their work insured, work out a deal with whatever transit unions there are along the way and open for business for real, then you can call it a "reality".
- dmfdmf 11y ago
  Everything revolving around Musk seems fishy to me. His Tesla and Solar companies are harvesting government subsidies and he writes a half-baked technical paper on hyperloop and suddenly there is money to spend on this boondoggle too. Something just doesn't add up (like Enron or Worldcom from a few years back) and I suspect that Musk and/or associated companies are (willing or unwilling) fronts for the FED to directly push money into the economy. The problem the FED has is that lowering the interest rates no longer works to boost the economy once you are at zero and they still need/want inflation to recover from the mortgage bust. I'd bet that there are academic papers on how to deal with ZIRP when you need to inflate that advocate such direct funding policies.
nomercy400 11y ago
Such negative responses. Isn't prototyping and actually just doing it part of innovation? I think it's great that this is being tried, and I hope that if it become a success they will extend the existing track to other cities.
- vasilipupkin 11y ago
  exactly. Why is everyone so negative? Sure, it hasn't been fully worked out yet. So, isn't still fantastic that we have yet another potential alternative ?
  - sailfast 11y ago
    Reading the McCullough biography of the Wright Brothers, I found myself wondering "what if they had read the Hacker News comments for flight?" The answer I found was that they were completely unperturbed by such trivialities, and that was a major part in their success. I'm happy to see somebody's testing out the concept and look forward to continued progress in the areas of transportation. I will say that the end of the article makes quite the proclamation regarding Hyperloop, with a big "If" but I think measured positivity is certainly warranted here.
    - guipsp 11y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863
      - sailfast 11y ago
        Point taken - and I appreciated it a great deal when they decided to make ShowHN official and suggest rules that would support the OP.
    - dragontamer 11y ago
      The Wright Brothers were also just trying to fly. They weren't trying to compete against well-established technology (such as trains that have already been built). The Wright Brothers also weren't asking for $5 Billion+ for a test flight. They mostly self-funded IIRC.
sctb 11y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9606001 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9606001

179 points by halfimmortal 11y ago

One thing is clear: Hyperloop is here to stay — as long as these early prototypes function according to plan Hmm, author might not be familiar with how prototypes work. I think its a great idea though, hope they get somewhere with it.

BinaryIdiot 11y ago
Everything is here to stay...as long as it is here to stay! (That bothered me too). Reminds me of the whole "20% of the time it works every time".
threeseed 11y ago
Even if it was a rock solid, proven solution major construction projects almost never go to plan.

jusben1369 11y ago

So you could build dedicated infrastructure that within 25 years might meaningfully move people and/or goods between two points at 500 mph to 800 mph via a single tube. Or you can move to complete self driving cars and trucks that without the risk of human error could travel on the existing infrastructure (in many case 2 - 5 lanes wide) at 200 - 300 mph within the same timeframe or shorter. I think self driving electric vehicles on the nation's roadways make the hyperloop at best something like Amtrak today in the US. Valuable and profitable only a few short routes/use cases. EDIT: I do think we'll solve for 200 - 300 mph in 20 - 25 years. But insert 150 - 200 mph. The main premise is we're not going to build multi billion new infrastructure when a "good enough" solution is organically evolving. Same reason why we don't have high speed trains in the US.

falcolas 11y ago
> at 200 - 300 mph What supercar are you looking at which is capable of this?
- jp555 11y ago
  Yeah I thought the same thing. Don't the Veyron's tires wear out in like 50km at top speed?
yenda 11y ago
Now imagine the 2 techs combined, hyperloops to link major hubs at the speed of sound and self driving cars for everything else.
ghaff 11y ago
For that matter, so long as we're having blue sky thinking involving untold billions of dollars of infrastructure, you might as well bring in new airports well out of the urban centers because that's what hyperloop is likely to be anyway.
Cthulhu_ 11y ago
Fast cars like that already exist, the main problem with those is that thanks to drag (air + surface), they become really uneconomical at higher speeds. 800 of the Bugatti Veyron's 1000 BHP only kicks in above 200 kph, maybe later - that's how much extra power is needed to squeeze out the last bit of performance to reach that max speed. Do that times the amount of cars, and you see the problem there. Although it probably would work if the cars drove in a partially evacuated tunnel. But then you wouldn't have the downforce needed to get the cars through corners at those speeds. If you put the cars on monorails though, maybe...
- simonh 11y ago
  You could call it the hypercarloop.
- Shivetya 11y ago
  I would think fully electric buses on dedicated roadways would be cheaper and more flexible in the end. Automated driving is coming closer and the best uses are for those which travel well marked and maintained routes, hence long distance trucking, buses, and the like. It certainly would be cheaper than building any type of elevated rail system. However with most transportation projects rail has way to much allure even when its financially stupid. Just look at the costs of some light rail projects in our cities and it never makes sense.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

apsec112 11y ago

Sadly, none of the stuff I've seen on Hyperloop addresses the civil engineering problems brought up by Alon Levy and others (https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2013/08/13/loopy-ideas-are-fine-if-youre-an-entrepreneur/ https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2013/08/13/loop...). In short: - The Hyperloop paper doesn't mention how trains would cross San Francisco Bay, or include a cost estimate for doing so. A new bridge? A new tunnel? Both would add greatly to the $6 billion cost estimate. - That $6 billion estimate also assumes that elevated concrete pylons can be built for much cheaper than any other project, with no mention of how. - The proposed track doesn't go to downtown LA; it ends at Sylmar, which is still ~25 miles from downtown and even further from most of the LA area. A 30 minute ride becomes much less exciting when it takes another hour or more to reach your real destination. - With the proposed 30-second headway, the system's capacity is only about 25% of a high-speed rail line, and 30 seconds still violates the crap out of typical safety standards (you can't run trains too close together without risking a collision if you can't brake quickly enough). - There are no intermediate stations; this is obviously a problem for the Central Valley, but it makes life inconvenient for plenty of other people too. Eg. someone in San Jose (pop. ~1 million, greater than SF's) would need to spend an extra hour or more getting to San Francisco vs. a station in San Jose itself.

dragonwriter 11y ago
Actually the paper answers the question of how it would cross the bay--it wouldn't. The proposed "San Francisco" terminus is in the East Bay (IIRC, pretty far east, as well). A significant part of the cost savings of the route proposed as an alternative to the HSR route cones from, unlike HSR, not actually going anywhere near the urban centers on either the SF or LA end.
- jfb 11y ago
  Hayward, I think. This is an interesting definition of "reality", and hyperloop is a deeply unserious Elon Musk Gedankenexperiment that's only given column inches because of the deeply unserious nature of what passes for journalism among the lickspittle shoeshine boys of Silicon Valley wannabes.

hownottowrite 11y ago

"Back in August 2013, long before Tesla..." Long? It's not even two years ago...

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
- trsohmers 11y ago
  That's why you read the first sentence of the article... "long before Tesla unveiled its plans to offer autopilot features on every new car..." Plus the roadster shipped to actual consumers from 2008 through 2012, and the model S started shipping in 2012.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- _mulder_ 11y ago
  Please read AT LEAST the very first line of the article before commenting.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]

JonFish85 11y ago

Agreements secured do not a reality make. It's one of the very first steps, now to be followed by a whole bunch more. It's a misleading headline, and I reject the notion out of hand. Running up the "mission accomplished" poster now is ridiculous. Before it becomes a "reality", there are some much larger hurdles to clear. Once they overrun their budget by 2x, complete their environmental surveys, get each town to sign off on land rights, get their work insured, work out a deal with whatever transit unions there are along the way and open for business for real, then you can call it a "reality".

dmfdmf 11y ago
Everything revolving around Musk seems fishy to me. His Tesla and Solar companies are harvesting government subsidies and he writes a half-baked technical paper on hyperloop and suddenly there is money to spend on this boondoggle too. Something just doesn't add up (like Enron or Worldcom from a few years back) and I suspect that Musk and/or associated companies are (willing or unwilling) fronts for the FED to directly push money into the economy. The problem the FED has is that lowering the interest rates no longer works to boost the economy once you are at zero and they still need/want inflation to recover from the mortgage bust. I'd bet that there are academic papers on how to deal with ZIRP when you need to inflate that advocate such direct funding policies.

nomercy400 11y ago

Such negative responses. Isn't prototyping and actually just doing it part of innovation? I think it's great that this is being tried, and I hope that if it become a success they will extend the existing track to other cities.

vasilipupkin 11y ago
exactly. Why is everyone so negative? Sure, it hasn't been fully worked out yet. So, isn't still fantastic that we have yet another potential alternative ?
- sailfast 11y ago
  Reading the McCullough biography of the Wright Brothers, I found myself wondering "what if they had read the Hacker News comments for flight?" The answer I found was that they were completely unperturbed by such trivialities, and that was a major part in their success. I'm happy to see somebody's testing out the concept and look forward to continued progress in the areas of transportation. I will say that the end of the article makes quite the proclamation regarding Hyperloop, with a big "If" but I think measured positivity is certainly warranted here.
  - guipsp 11y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863
    - sailfast 11y ago
      Point taken - and I appreciated it a great deal when they decided to make ShowHN official and suggest rules that would support the OP.
  - dragontamer 11y ago
    The Wright Brothers were also just trying to fly. They weren't trying to compete against well-established technology (such as trains that have already been built). The Wright Brothers also weren't asking for $5 Billion+ for a test flight. They mostly self-funded IIRC.

sctb 11y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9606001 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9606001