Virgin Hyperloop One Eyes India For Possible High-Speed Routes

India is officially being added to the list of nations that have expressed interest in near-supersonic, tube-based travel. Virgin Hyperloop One "signed agreements with the governments of Maharashtra and Karnataka to begin studying the impact of a hyperloop in the region," reports The Verge. "The feasibility studies have implications for India's giant cities like Mumbai and Bangalore, as well as fast-growing urban centers like Pune and Nagpur." From the report: The agreements are signs that despite its lack of a commercial product or human-ready testing, Virgin Hyperloop One has shown a tenacity for securing agreements with willing government partners. The company recently announced 10 winning submissions in a long-running contest to find what it believes to be the best places to build the first hyperloop routes in the world. Ten teams across five countries (Mexico, India, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada) were picked from the original 2,600 submissions, and the routes range in size from about 200 to nearly 700 miles, depending on the location. Virgin Hyperloop One hasn't specified the length of the routes it would build in India -- to be sure, it remains possible that none of these proposed routes get built -- but it did tease some of the possibilities in terms of reduction in travel time. For example, it would take just 14 minutes to travel between Mumbai and the fast-growing city of Pune, a journey that currently takes up to three hours by car. Also, it could look at connecting Nagpur, which is in the easternmost part of Maharashtra, with Mumbai and Pune to vastly improve passenger and freight transportation.

Re:

[x0ra]

Actually, the Keystone pipeline primary function is to import Canadian oil from Alberta to the US.

I can just see it

[Snotnose]

Indians hopping onto the roof, hanging onto the back, jumping onto the cow catcher. An 80 person car with 300 people on it. This should be fun to watch.

Re:

[johanw]

Hey, even captain Janeway fell for that one. :-)

Re:

[Hognoxious]

Will there be a designated shitting tube?

Virgin Hyperloop?

[jfdavis668]

How long do you think it will remain virgin?

Kickbacks FTW

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> despite its lack of a commercial product or human-ready testing, Virgin Hyperloop One has shown a tenacity for securing agreements with willing government partners

Kickbacks FTW. Go government!

Attention!

[nsuccorso]

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What?

[kenh]

vastly improve passenger and freight transportation.

freight? - there must be a better, more cost-effective way to move freight across India, rather than a hyperloop...

Re: What?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Perhaps "freight" isnt't the best term? I'd picture it as a large-scale replacement for air mail.

Re:

[plopez]

"forward with Mumbai-Delhi HSR, the small towns in between *prevent their citizens from being screwed* and kill it."

Fixed that for you. Hope it helps.

Re:

[nospam007]

"the reason freight is mentioned, is that there aren't that many people who would be willing to pay more for a tube journey than air."

Other than the couple of hundred millions Indians afraid of flying you mean?

Re:

[angel'o'sphere]

Why? Unmanned containers moved through a hyperloop sounds like a nice improvement over pneumatic tubes.
Why driving parcels with trucks when you have a hyperloop? Thinking about alibaba prime ...

Re:

[nospam007]

"freight? - there must be a better, more cost-effective way to move freight across India, rather than a hyperloop..."

You mean because of their many fantastic free- and highways?

Uh-oh

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope this hyperloop that is never going to be built in India doesn't crash into that other hyperloop that is never going to be built in India!

Brilliant

[argStyopa]

Build a boutique, experimental (dangerous as fuck*) transport system in a country where things like clean water, sanitation, basic education, and electricity are still not a "given" for a billion people.

*Think I'm wrong? https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

Jesus wept.

A friend worked for large multinational firewall vendor, as the primary tech sales lead for S & SE Asia. He said that he could hardly bear it, slogging into some shitville city to install $100,000+ firewall equipment in some school building, where the power cables were literally lying in the mud in the street, trailing in the door, and running to what looked like a birdnest of a power box.
Oh, and it wasn't infrequent that they were installing firewalls on government contracts WHERE THERE WAS NO SERVER TO PROTECT ("Yet!" said the local government functionary, optimistically).

Re:

[angel'o'sphere]

Wow, your tech jobs are outsorced to Insia.
And you think: they have no education, universities, electricity ... and more shocking is you think they have more than a billion inhabitants.

Nince anecdote, though.

Re:

[argStyopa]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=populatio... [lmgtfy.com]

Population of India: 1.324 billion.

Average income India:
"India's per capita income (nominal) was Rs7,593 in 2013, ranked at 112th out of 164 countries by the World Bank, while its per capita income on purchasing power parity (PPP) basis was US$5,350, and ranked 106th."

Electrification:
http://www.hindustantimes.com/... [hindustantimes.com]
"In 2 years, BJP govt electrified 13523 villages; only 8% were completely electrified
As of May 25, 2017, 13,523 villages have been electrified, but 100% househol

Re:

[angel'o'sphere]

Oh, last time I checked they had 880millions.

The other facts we did not discuss.

The average income is irrelevant, as it is related to the cost of living. Purchasing Parity is unfortunately often not correct, so no idea how it is in this case :D

Re:

[philmarcracken]

If that video isn't thunderfoot I'll eat my hat. Hey, look at that, it is him

https://www.reddit.com/r/Futur... [reddit.com]

860 per hour isn't a lot of people.

[91degrees]

I'm sure it would be cheaper to have a fleet of A380's and the infrastructure for them than building this for the longer distances. They can handle the same number of people in a single flight (all economy configuration), and have the capacity for several more. For the shorter distances, high speed rail has 10 times the capacity.

The technology is interesting but I'm sceptical about the business case.

Is it lost on people

[cmaurand]

That current airliner technology is also near supersonic. Most airliners run at about .8 or .9 mach. I like the idea of the tubes, Speed doesn't generally cause accidents, but it increases the severity of the damage they do to living and other things.