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Transportation

The Hyperloop Lives On As a 1/12th Scale Model In Switzerland (theverge.com) 34

Last December, Hyperloop One, the futuristic transportation company pursuing Elon Musk's dream of tube-based, airplane-speed travel, announced its shutdown. However, the concept itself has found a new lease on life in a scaled-down version overseas. According to The Verge's Andrew J. Hawkins, "The hyperloop, in fact, lives on -- as a 1/12th scale model in Switzerland." From the report: Sure, this isn't exactly the full realization of Musk's 2013 white paper, in which he theorized that aerodynamic aluminum capsules filled with passengers or cargo could be propelled through a nearly airless tube at speeds of up to 760mph. These tubes, either raised on pylons or sunk beneath the earth, could be built either within or between cities. Musk called it a "fifth mode of transportation" and argued it could help change the way we live, work, trade, and travel. The idea is being put to the test in Lausanne, Switzerland, where a 120-meter circular test track is being operated by a team that includes the Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), the School of Business and Engineering Vaud (HEIG-VD), and Swisspod Technologies. This week, the group announced that it had conducted "the longest" hyperloop test of its kind: traveling 11.8 km (7.3 miles) at a speed of 40.7km/h (25.3mph).

The circular test track has a circumference of 125.6 meters (412 feet) and a diameter of 40 centimeters (15.7 inches). It sounds modest, but the group claims that in a full-scale system, their test "directly translates" to a journey of 141.6 km (88 miles), which is about the distance between Geneva and Bern, or San Francisco to Sacramento, and speeds of up to 488.2 km/h (303.4mph). The project is called LIMITLESS, which stands for Linear Induction Motor Drive for Traction and Levitation in Sustainable Hyperloop Systems. During the test, the team "monitored the performance of vital subsystems," including propulsion, communication infrastructure, power electronics, and thermal management. They assessed "energy consumption, thrust variations, [linear induction motor] response, and control during acceleration, cruising, coasting, and braking scenarios."

Of course, a 1/12th-scale circular test track is hardly a sign that the hyperloop is alive and well. Most of the startups and companies pursuing a full-scale hyperloop have shut down, victims of financial mismanagement, as well as infrastructure and regulatory hurdles. Critics said that while the hyperloop may be technically feasible, it still only amounts to vaporware. It's been called a "utopian vision" that would be financially impossible to achieve. But the Swiss team is undeterred, promising to conduct a battery of future tests to further validate the system. Swisspod CEO Denis Tudor said the group plans to test its first freight product soon, and is currently building a larger test track in the US. "This is a key step toward making hyperloop for passengers a reality and changing how we connect, work, and live," he said.

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The Hyperloop Lives On As a 1/12th Scale Model In Switzerland

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  • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Tuesday November 05, 2024 @07:14PM (#64922499)
    that were the real reason the hyperloop existed in the first place?

    I mean seriously folks, it was a public transit system being proposed by a guy with a majority stake in a car company. It didn't take Woodward & Bernstien to figure out something wasn't right.
    • He actually wants fewer cars on the road, as evidenced by his pivot of Tesla toward being a robotaxi company. If more people car-shared robotaxis, number of cars on road would decline.
      Also, hyperloops are primarily envisioned to replace (and eliminate emissions of) short-haul and medium haul aviation, and medium haul freight trucking, not cars.
      • He doesn't want either more or fewer cars on the road, he's a guy with a ton of (other people's) money to throw around and will throw it at anything cool-sounding that catches his fancy. When there's adults around to pull his hands away from the wheel before he drives into the ditch, they sometimes work out. When not... well, Twitter, Cybertruck, Hyperloop, the list goes on.
      • by Ksevio ( 865461 )

        We've seen from more ride-share companies that it doesn't really cut down on cars on the road, usually the opposite. People take the taxis instead of public transit if it's convenient/affordable enough. The vehicles aren't always going to have a passenger, it just doesn't work out that conveniently so they have to go somewhere between trips and have to travel to pick up people so it ends up more vehicles on the road

        • What surprises me, is that uber/lyft is not that cheap, especially with surge pricing. And yet the twenty somethings are taking uber instead of the bus or light rail or walking or using a bike. But then, it's the same group that thinks having money left over at the end of the month is a bad thing. I definitely can take light rail far more cheaply than taking uber. The only time I use a ride share is when leaving a car for service, as the dealers have mostly all laid off their own courtesy drivers and re

        • Well that MAY change when anyone can buy a car which they could also (if they want it to be essentially a free car, because it's earning their car payments) rent it out to drive others around. At some point there could be a tipping point.
          • by Ksevio ( 865461 )

            But imagine the logistics of this. First, people drive around the same time (rush hour) so the number of cars won't really diminish, it would just give an option to have them rented out instead of parked, but there would be a lot more cars than people that need them so the cars are either still going to be parked or are going to be driving around in traffic with no one in them.

            • In such a scenario, eventually a significant number of people may choose to not have the initial expense and hassle of owning a car, but just be users of the robo-taxi network, so the total number of cars bought and competing for road space would be reduced from today.

              The robo taxi network would eventually be smart enough not to cause its own congestion. Idle empty cars would be kept off of congested roads.

              Fewer parking spaces needed so more through road space.

              If the majority of cars and trucks end up as au
              • by Ksevio ( 865461 )

                This heavily depends on people staggering when they want to drive to/from work to give cars to drive to the busier destinations and back out to pick up the next fare and the reverse in the afternoon. Meanwhile the cars all have to go somewhere. Either to some parking facility locally or drive out to some remote facility. Ends up being probably twice the energy spent driving with half that being empty rides

      • Nobody car shares a taxi with anyone but their immediate family. That's not how taxis work.

        And his robotaxis are just pump and dump anyway. He doesn't have the technology. He tried to cut quarters leaving out the lidar and wasted a huge amount of time on tech that was never going to work and now he's 10 years behind everybody else. So he does dog and pony shows to keep his stock price up. It didn't even work the last time he did it
        • by stooo ( 2202012 )

          >> Nobody car shares a taxi with anyone
          There are a huge lot of countries where taxi rides are shared. Mainly poorer countries.

        • Let me rephrase that. His plan entails fewer individual cars in the north american automobile fleet, which entails fewer car sales.

          While it's true that robotaxi concept doesn't reduce the number of cars driving around, 1/3 of the number of total cars does all that driving around.

          Also, eventually, if the model takes hold, parking lanes can mostly be eliminated, so that would have a slight congestion reduction effect.
      • He actually wants fewer cars on the road, as evidenced by his pivot of Tesla toward being a robotaxi company.

        What BS. Musk wants to sell cars. The H-L was Musk's alternative to railways and aircraft because he hates public transport except in small pods that he and his bodyguards would fill with no strangers present. Musk hates "strangers" and railways. He's now bored with cars and is moving into robots and politics, but his wealth is still in cars. The robotaxis will not revolutionise anything.

        • His main motivation with Tesla, and hyperloop concept, is to eliminate CO2 emissions by electrifying the transportation, then switching the power grid to renewables + battery storage.

          His company doing this stuff has first mover advantage, and innovates well, so it's also profitable. But that profitability is largely due to being one of the first to implement the post-energy-transition transportation architecture. Almost every "competing" company that is not in China is just sitting around denying that chang
      • by augo ( 6575028 )

        It's hard to see how car sharing would reduce the number of vehicles on the road. When a personal car isn’t being used, it’s typically parked in a garage or a parking spot, not occupying road space. The actual number of cars on the road is determined by how many people are commuting at any given time and how many passengers each car holds, not by who owns the vehicles. So, whether cars are individually owned or shared, the number of occupied cars on the road should remain about the same.

        However,

      • Don't think so. Taxis are not fewer cars on the road. Ride-share in the curent state has little to no "sharing", uber and lyft are essentially single trip taxis and not a transit service. Right now uber and lyft drivers are on the road, driving around, waiting for the phone to ding to go pick someone up. Nothing about a mythical robotaxi mockup changes this, and nothing in Musk's presentation appeared to hint about mass transit. He just wants to sell stuff.

  • I might, maybe, possibly be persuaded to accept the risk of sudden decompression as a condition of space flight. I certainly wouldn't risk it as a condition of what is essentially a train ride.

    • by Ksevio ( 865461 )

      Ok, but what if were a really expensive train ride with low capacity?

    • by Whibla ( 210729 )

      I might, maybe, possibly be persuaded to accept the risk of sudden decompression as a condition of space flight. I certainly wouldn't risk it as a condition of what is essentially a train ride.

      How about a trip on an aeroplane?

      • by nasch ( 598556 )

        Decompression on a airplane isn't generally fatal because it's not high enough to cause any problems other than oxygen. So use the supplemental oxygen and you're fine. Decompression of a hyperloop would be fatal to everyone, though thankfully it would be a quick death as you're just turned to paste by the shock wave.

  • by nsuccorso ( 41169 ) on Tuesday November 05, 2024 @08:19PM (#64922587)

    On second thought, let's not build a Hyperloop. It is a silly thing.

    • It's not actually silly. There is a point to it. However we're just not ready for it, and one guy who's too rich to recieve effective feedback thinks that just throwing money at problems makes it all work. Private industry wants a profit, and that means this sort of stuff is off the table until governments pay for it or some rich guy decides to go broke making it happen.

      But Musk is an anti-government guy, he doesn't really believe in the idea that big stuff only happens with government, despite SpaceX onl

  • Vacuum trains were conceived by Robert Goddard in 1904 (and foreseen by others ahead of them), but the idea had never been made to work. Maintaining vacuum is hard and putting people inside is extremely dangerous.
  • Ironic that guys in Switzerland should call it a Hyperloop because around 45 years ago (and still staggering on AFAIK) there was the Swissmetro project [wikipedia.org] which was one of several similar vacuum tube schemes predating Musk's dredging the stupid idea up again.

    Not that Musk took H-L seriously himself - he only proposed it as an idea-in-being to oppose the Californian high speed rail project, because he has a pathological hatred of railways. Claims that "H-L is the future" have even been used in the UK by opp
    • by nasch ( 598556 )

      he has a pathological hatred of railways.

      Good public transit reduces demand for cars.

  • Rail and air both have the problem that you need to get to a station or airport first, and from it afterwards, and the total journey time can be dominated by that. So reducing the station-station journey time has diminishing returns. On top of that, H-L stations will be very few and far between because they can only be on the line and there is the problem of queuing traffic into them, specially as Musk proposed each H-L pod carrying only ~12 passengers, and an airlock is involved. OTOH aircraft can wait fo
  • by ledow ( 319597 )

    I'd be far more impressed if someone could just finish off UK HS2 as it was originally planned, if it happened even VAGUELY near the original budget / timescale (which I don't think is even possible any more).

    That's just a train track, going from one place to another, with the land under already compulsorily-purchased and no fancy technology to deal with.

    And I categorically hate using trains unless it's absolutely necessary. But if someone finished off HS2 as it was designed and planned, that would be FAR

    • by Whibla ( 210729 )

      That's just a train track, going from one place to another, with the land under already compulsorily-purchased and no fancy technology to deal with.

      I have a vague memory* that, since HS2 was 'reduced in scope' some of that land has already been sold off. And at a loss...

      I seriously despair of my government at times!

      *Then again, my memory isn't what it used to be, so take this with a sizeable grain of salt.

      • The snag is that big ideas really can't be done by anyone except governments, or at least governments paying private industry lots of money. This is because private industry can't do it, you need a profit at every step of the way. Thus, defense contractors, government contractors, etc. Private industry that feeds on the teet of government. And they all want to milk that teet for all its worth. And if it can't be done for a small (in size) country like UK, then imagine it in America.

        You could point to t

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