Opinion - Our New Future
Op-ed: The hyperloop will revolutionize transportation in the post-coronavirus world
Even though hyperloop capsules can reach speeds of 760 miles per hour, on a practical level, this transportation sector appears to be stalled....The challenges facing the transportation sector are significant and multi-faceted. But past the pitfalls of this antiquated system of steel railroads and cumbersome commercial flights lies a faster future. When we arrive, we’ll enjoy new travel experiences defined by safety, speed, environmentalism and improved comfort. To get there, you’ll need a fifth mode of transportation: Something low density, yet high volume. Something that is twice the speed of a plane, yet safer than any current public transportation; you’ll need something that is sustainable, reliable, and immune to weather variations. In other words, you’ll need a hyperloop.Coined by Elon Musk in 2013, hyperloop is a bold engineering initiative to send elevated passenger pods through tubes using magnetic fields, allowing people to travel even faster than modern airplanes from city-to-city. [Regular readers might want to skip this parenthetical—God knows you've heard it before—but the "hyperloop" that Elon Musk proposed in 2013 was a completely different technology than what companies like Virgin were trying to build in 2020. As profoundly silly and prohibitively expensive as those projects unquestionably were, they were nonetheless models of practicality and sound engineering compared to Musk's original idea for a near-supersonic train that ran on an air cushion, in his own words, like an air hockey table. It was a piece of engineering so bad, even by the debased standards of 21st-century, drug-fueled techbro babbling, that everyone in the field pretended it had never happened. -- MP] Although the concept sounds futuristic, we are actually very close to realizing it. From Musk to Richard Branson, the world’s greatest minds are building out testing sites across the United States to conduct high velocity experiments. And both state and federal governments are recognizing the value this technology has to their communities.Just last month, the U.S. Department of Transportation issued a direction to establish regulations for hyperloop technology, with Secretary Elaine Chao saying, “Inventors, investors, and stakeholders are ready to build out these technologies.”The Transportation Department has since categorized hyperloop under the Federal Railroad Administration, making it eligible for government infrastructure funds. Virgin Hyperloop just received sign off from the Indian government to build out one of its first projects in the country’s western provinces. As an early investor in Virgin Hyperloop, the value this technology has for the transportation sector, company shareholders, local communities, and major metropolitan regions are obvious. After all initial fixed cost investments, hyperloop projects are inexpensive to operate and have a high degree of operating leverage....Many skeptics will point to partisan gridlock as one major hurdle the nascent industry faces, using the government showdowns over Amtrak’s operating budget as a case study. But once legislators recognize all of hyperloop’s benefits, these issues will be nonexistent. Republicans like Elaine Chao already love hyperloop because it is creating new economic opportunity zones, while Democrats are embracing its environmental component. Texas Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro famously once said, “Texas should be building hyperloop.”
Disclosure: Mr. Asher is an investor in Virgin Hyperloop.
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