Photo: The Boring Company
A paper on Elon Musk's proposed high-speed transportation system, named Hyperloop, was published back in 2013. Although companies have been working over the years to turn the concept into a reality, we still haven't seen a full-scale Hyperloop. Now, Musk plans to change that.
After Musk published the white paper on Hyperloop, companies took on the task of making this futuristic transportation system a reality for many. The ultimate goal is to have autonomous pods that can cover large distances in a super-short time. How? By traveling at speeds of more than 600 mph (966 kph) through sealed and partially evacuated tubes.
So far, bringing this tech to life has proven to be a very difficult task. Los-Angeles based Virgin Hyperloop has made some progress with the concept, successfully completing the first passenger test for what it calls the XP-2 pod at the end of 2020. But that was a scaled-down version of the pod that managed to travel 100 mph (161 kph) through an airless tunnel.
Musk also took on the challenging task when he founded The Boring Company in 2016. But his idea focused on making an alternative public transportation system involving Tesla vehicles that would ferry passengers down a network of tunnels, avoiding the heavy traffic on the surface.
The Boring Company created one such tunnel in Vegas that stretches out for 1.7 miles (2.7 km), which opened last year in April. Now, after some months of silence regarding the Hyperloop, the one who sparked everyone's imagination has mentioned that The Boring Company will attempt to build a working high-speed public transportation system "in the coming years."
The billionaire took to Twitter to comment that "from a known physics standpoint, this is the fastest possible way of getting from one city center to another for distances less than ~2000 miles. Starship is faster for longer journeys."
He also seems to favor the idea of building underground tunnels for the pods since they would be "immune to surface weather conditions (subways are a good example), so it wouldn't matter to Hyperloop if a hurricane was raging on the surface."
While there's no exact date revealed regarding the massive and complex project, The Boring Company has already announced that full-scale testing is expected to take place later this year.
So far, bringing this tech to life has proven to be a very difficult task. Los-Angeles based Virgin Hyperloop has made some progress with the concept, successfully completing the first passenger test for what it calls the XP-2 pod at the end of 2020. But that was a scaled-down version of the pod that managed to travel 100 mph (161 kph) through an airless tunnel.
Musk also took on the challenging task when he founded The Boring Company in 2016. But his idea focused on making an alternative public transportation system involving Tesla vehicles that would ferry passengers down a network of tunnels, avoiding the heavy traffic on the surface.
The Boring Company created one such tunnel in Vegas that stretches out for 1.7 miles (2.7 km), which opened last year in April. Now, after some months of silence regarding the Hyperloop, the one who sparked everyone's imagination has mentioned that The Boring Company will attempt to build a working high-speed public transportation system "in the coming years."
The billionaire took to Twitter to comment that "from a known physics standpoint, this is the fastest possible way of getting from one city center to another for distances less than ~2000 miles. Starship is faster for longer journeys."
He also seems to favor the idea of building underground tunnels for the pods since they would be "immune to surface weather conditions (subways are a good example), so it wouldn't matter to Hyperloop if a hurricane was raging on the surface."
While there's no exact date revealed regarding the massive and complex project, The Boring Company has already announced that full-scale testing is expected to take place later this year.
Hyperloop testing at full-scale begins later this year.
— The Boring Company (@boringcompany) April 25, 2022
Google News