Hyperloop Guide - Gallery / Lauren Joseph / Jan 25th, 2018 @ 16:30
Elon Musk/Hyperloop Alpha01Humanity’s first glimpse of the revolution that could be hyperloop came from Elon Musk, in a 2013 technical paper. The details have changed as hyperloop companies approach commercialization, but the basics—levitating pods in a near-vacuum tube—remain the same.
Serge Roux02After Musk encouraged anyone and everyone to make hyperloop happen, people rushed to adapt his ideas to the real world. French industrial designer Serge Roux, for example, imagined a two-story circular hyperloop station, a more elegant solution than Musk’s proposed turntable-style setup.
Hyperloop Transportation Technologies03Within a year, actual companies had materialized, and a hyperloop industry was born. One of the first entrants was Hyperloop Transportation Technologies. Its early renderings provided a more detailed, aesthetic vision of how the tubes would look in real life, say in cities like New York and San Francisco.
MIT04Musk soon changeed his mind about being too busy to help make hyperloop real. In 2015, he built a test track and started holding student competitions to find the best pod design. An early winner, from MIT, envisioned a 550-pound design of aluminum, carbon fiber, and polycarbonate that uses neodymium magnets for levitation, wheels for low-speed movement, and hydraulic brakes for stopping.
Virgin Hyperloop One05Industry heavyweight Virgin Hyperloop One has serious engineering chops and a test track in Nevada. But even it gets carried away: In November 2016, it showed off renderings of a system in which pods double as self-driving cars. They’d find you on the street, take you to the nearest tube, “hyperjump” to the appropriate exit, then drive you the rest of the way to your destination. Of course, they imagined this happening in Dubai, the magpie of cities.
The Boring Company06Never one to be out-crazied, Elon Musk showed off his vision for tubular travel in a 2017 TED talk: Cars would drive themselves (of course), take elevators from the street to underground tunnels, then ride electric sleds, zooming along at 124 mph. The hyperloop as we know it, Musk clarified, would be reserved for longer, intercity voyages, where near-supersonic speeds are more valuable.
Arrivo07As the concept of hyperloop evolves, it’s looking less and less like Musk’s original idea. The greatest schism comes from Brogan BamBrogan, who co-founded Virgin Hyperloop One, and now is running his own outfit, Arrivo. He’s all for levitating pods, but thinks the tube setup isn’t worth the added cost and complication. All of a sudden, “hyperloop” looks a lot like the maglev trains that have been around since the 1980s.
