Where's the buzz about Elon Musk's "hyperloop" high speed rail alternative?

[davester]

Elon's a pretty interesting guy (I'd argue that he might be on a par with Steve Jobs as a visionary that can execute his visions). He's come up with a fairly decent argument for a new system that involves shuttling passengers several hundred miles using capsules that travel through low pressure tubes that resembles a number of older sci-fi or former futurist ideas of transportation. Interestingly he is totally against high speed rail, which he calls an overly expensive and slow transportation mode. Of course he's being pooh-poohed by the head of the California high speed rail project among others. I think his idea has merit.

Here's a description of the concept: http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files...130812.pdf

[ztirffritz]

It does have merit, but it isn't likely to happen, and he said that he has no intention of doing it. His plate is full with Tesla, SpaceX and SolarCity. The proposed high-speed rail in California will be among the slowest 'high-speed' options on rails. It will also be among the most expensive, considering the grossly inflated price of property in most of CA.

[cbelt3]

Z said it all. I'll add that the engineering of large scale projects of this sort is definitely not for the faint of heart, and the cost ? Yow. Competition with the 'other people movers' in the area: Airlines and Automobiles ? Yeah. Nope.

[davester]

With people like you cbelt, we'd all be still driving horses and buggies. Obviously you didn't even read the article since the concept addresses the significant shortcomings of the other "people movers". You seem to be saying that since engineering large projects is costly and difficult, then we shouldn't attempt large projects. I guess they shouldn't have ever attempted building the mars rovers, the chunnel, apollo, the swiss tunnels, the millau viaduct, nuclear submarines, jumbo jets, and all those other large and difficult projects.

[Paul F.]

Some significant advantages to hyperloop vs air, rail, or road...
Like 27 passenger pod every 30 seconds, potentially 24/7/365. Although I doubt they'd need one every 30 seconds at 2am...

And yes, it is BIG... but the technology already exists, on smaller scales.

Of course, with how ridiculously inflated the "high speed rail to nowhere" project has become, I wouldn't expect California to be a good place to field the first one. It would end up costing 200 billion dollars before any hardware is built.
The "high speed rail" project is already pushing 100 billion dollars, with nothing built yet, and it's still years away from carrying a single passenger.

[sekker]

The stockholders of SpaceX and Tesla were VERY upset that Musk was putting this on the table.

I think he intended to do it, but his recent conference calls pushed him to back off.

This is a terrific idea that is likely 50 years ahead of its time - unless Musk can get a team of entrepreneurs to build it.

[GGD]

I wonder what the ride will be like heading south when you hit the Grapevine at 800MPH. This might be competition for Disneyland.

[vision63]

We just spent a billion dollars adding a car pool lane to 10 miles of I-405 in Los Angeles. I'd say High Speed Rail is cheap. The good thing is can't stop it now. I say do a 30 mile demonstration of the Hyperloop.

[Paul F.]

vision63 wrote:
We just spent a billion dollars adding a car pool lane to 10 miles of I-405 in Los Angeles. I'd say High Speed Rail is cheap. The good thing is can't stop it now. I say do a 30 mile demonstration of the Hyperloop.

No, it's not cheap... the I-405 car pool lane at 100 million dollars a mile is just another example of moronically expensive.

However, the idea of a 30 mile demonstration line isn't bad. Except it might have to be more like 50 miles... I'm not sure it would even be up to speed in 30 miles!

[Black]

Here?
http://forums.macresource.com/read.php?1,1598036