Anyone onboard the Hyperloop Hype Loop?

"djmt1" (djmt1) 07/05/2016 at 17:59 • Filed to: None

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Because I sure as shit am not. Anyway sell me on it since given the amount of articles about it, I must clearly be missing how the Hyperloop will succeed where Maglevs have spectacularly failed.

Flies With Thunderbirds > djmt1 07/05/2016 at 18:17

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Vacuums right? Like, that’s the main difference between the maglevs and hyper loop, there is a vacuum to reduce friction from air?

TheHondaBro > Flies With Thunderbirds 07/05/2016 at 18:18

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Basically gigantic pneumatic tubes. In theory it should be a fantastic mass transport system.

lone_liberal > djmt1 07/05/2016 at 18:18

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I’m mostly with you. There seems to be so many technological hurdles that would have to be overcome even if they were able to build the tracks which is a political bees nest. People get so excited about Elon’s name that it blinds them.

e36Jeff now drives a ZHP > djmt1 07/05/2016 at 18:20

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It is a brilliant concept, just not for people moving. It would be nearly perfect for freight though.

DutchieDC2R > djmt1 07/05/2016 at 18:23

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In Holland, the Delft Uni actually sees viable future in the HyperLoop plans.

http://delta.tudelft.nl/artikel/delft-…

Honeybunchesofgoats > djmt1 07/05/2016 at 18:23

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I want to like it and care about it, but the US can't even manage a proper high-speed train, so I'm not inclined to hold my breath.

Flies With Thunderbirds > TheHondaBro 07/05/2016 at 18:26

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Goes near mach. ~760mph

djmt1 > Flies With Thunderbirds 07/05/2016 at 18:26

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Indeed but is air friction such a big problem in practice? We don’t know how fast current Maglevs can go because quite simply there isn’t enough space on the exists tracks. Wouldn’t it make more sense to find out the limit of current motor technology before dramatically increasing construction, maintenance and running costs?

TheHondaBro > djmt1 07/05/2016 at 18:27

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Air friction won’t be a problem when there’s very little air in front of the craft.

Flies With Thunderbirds > djmt1 07/05/2016 at 18:28

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Because Elon Musk does things because he can.

djmt1 > e36Jeff now drives a ZHP 07/05/2016 at 18:28

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We can overnight items from pretty much anywhere in the world. What could Hyperloop possibly transport which can’t be transported now. Also since the concept of freight transport, it has always been substantially more profitable to move a lot slowly than a little quickly.

djmt1 > TheHondaBro 07/05/2016 at 18:33

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So again I ask why waste the money fixing a problem that we don’t know is actually a problem?

e36Jeff now drives a ZHP > djmt1 07/05/2016 at 18:34

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A hyperloop would allow you to move freight with the cost of a train but the speed of a plane.

djmt1 > Flies With Thunderbirds 07/05/2016 at 18:34

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Well when it’s someone else’s money I guess I would too.

LOREM IPSUM > djmt1 07/05/2016 at 18:34

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Try fedexing or upsing or dhling or uspsing anything from the eastern us to western canada. Buy the most expensive option.

It will still take a week. Somehow.

...when it absolutely positively has to be there [s]overnight[/s] eventually.

djmt1 > DutchieDC2R 07/05/2016 at 18:36

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Do they though? Or do they just want the funding and publicity? I mean people are just throwing money at anything with Hyperloop written on the side right now.

TheHondaBro > djmt1 07/05/2016 at 18:37

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It’s not fixing a problem, it’s just a more efficient transit system.

djmt1 > e36Jeff now drives a ZHP 07/05/2016 at 18:41

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Gotta any figures to back that up?

djmt1 > TheHondaBro 07/05/2016 at 18:42

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By what measurement?

djmt1 > LOREM IPSUM 07/05/2016 at 18:44

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Sounds like a Yankee problem. Here in Blighty, I’ve have no such problem getting stuff from the other side of the planet but then again we’ve gotten very good at that sort of thing.

TheHondaBro > djmt1 07/05/2016 at 18:47

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Four.

djmt1 > TheHondaBro 07/05/2016 at 18:49

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*Sigh*

TheHondaBro > djmt1 07/05/2016 at 18:52

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Seriously though: the Hyperloop would enable people to travel distances in a fraction of the time it would take a car or a train, and would cost much less than a plane.

djmt1 > TheHondaBro 07/05/2016 at 19:01

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Gonna need some figures there because that sounds like some right bollocks. Keeping in mind the astronomical infrasture costs of building a railway and the small capacity of the Hyperloop pods (less than 10% of current HSR) how on earth are they gonna keep the ticket prices low to keep it going. The Hyperloop isn’t some vanity project like the Shanghai Maglev, we’re talking about possibly a full intercity rail service.

e36Jeff now drives a ZHP > djmt1 07/05/2016 at 19:08

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OK, so first things first, apparently its closer to truck freight in the dollar-per-ton costs. That’s my bad, I thought it was train.

There aren’t any direct figures from Musk, because he is pushing it as a passenger transport concept, rather than a freight transport concept, so everything has to be extrapolated from the quoted passenger costs($20/person for 28 people at a time). It’s believed the per-ton costs would be in the range of over-the road truck freight.

The speed part is on point though, its expected to move at 800 mph or so.

http://iveybusinessreview.ca/blogs/mzawalsk…

djmt1 > e36Jeff now drives a ZHP 07/05/2016 at 19:17

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28 people per pod? and they’re gonna charge $20 per person? Who is paying for the California Hyperloop because it won’t make back the billions it will cost to build it or the millions to keep it running.

Anyway we’re talking about frieght here. Which goes back to my original point. Is there really a lack of capacity when it comes to moving frieght from San Francisco to Los Angeles? In fact how much freight actually moves between the two city centres anyway?

e36Jeff now drives a ZHP > djmt1 07/05/2016 at 19:48

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I’m not talking about a small scale freight line between SF and LA. I was speaking more towards a coast-to-coast affair, granted you’d want to wait for the construction costs to drop before you started in on that.

In terms of the SF to LA route, for a bullet train it was estimated ridership would be 18-31 million/year. There and maybe the northeast corridor are about the only places in the US that it would make sense to have a passenger hyperloop. And Musk wants to charge $20, other people have suggested $40-50 might be the better price point. At $20/person its probably a long-term(20+ years) break even, where a $50/person fare would likely make its construction costs back in 5-10 years. Once its installed, it should be fairly low maintenance, as there is no contact between the module and the tube, and the modules are powered by solar panels on the top of the tube. The only real moving parts are the fans powering the air bearings and the fan at the front.

djmt1 > e36Jeff now drives a ZHP 07/05/2016 at 20:00

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Hang on. They’re planning to power it by solar? Given the extraordinary amount of power a maglev system needs to even work plus the added power needed to keep a 700 mile long vacuum sealed. I’m highly sceptical solar would be enough given how solar power plant development has stalled as of late.

Also what distance will there be between the pods? Given the speed they’re traveling at it must be substantial which is gonna seriously reduce capacity. I mean this is the big inefficiency of current HSR networks.

Also Also. 20 years? That won’t happen. Look at The Channel Tunnel which runs at full capacity and yet it will never pay back the cost to build it and it’s tunnels are easily accessible and not a continuous vacuum.

e36Jeff now drives a ZHP > djmt1 07/05/2016 at 20:19

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The tubes are no longer vacuums, they are just reduced-pressure with a fan on the front of the module to duct the air in front to behind it/under it. It’s not comparable to a maglev in terms of power required as it doesn’t use magnets for levitation, it rides on an air bearing. Acceleration is done by linear induction motors, similar to what is used on some roller coasters and the module will actually be coasting for the majority of its trip. From the descriptions, it should be fairly power efficient, I have little doubt that a 350 mile long ribbon of solar panels would be able to supply most, if not all of its power. Still, due to the high initial buy-in costs, its only useful for people in extremely high-traffic routes.

Brian McKay > Honeybunchesofgoats 07/06/2016 at 03:14

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Exactly

gmporschenut also a fan of hondas > djmt1 07/06/2016 at 07:40

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what annoys me is

A) the concept has been proposed for decades,

B) all the legal cost and technical difficulties are just washed over as “they’ll figure it out”

OversteerMyBagel > djmt1 07/24/2016 at 18:29

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It is if you want to go really, really, fast. To your point, this makes absolutely no sense for freight, as very little cargo transport is so essential as to require trans-US transit in just under 4 hours, and that which is can usually justify a dedicated plane flight - transplant organs, for example.

As to the people side of things. IF all the technical, infrastructure, controls, operations, and financial issues can be sorted out, then I suppose it makes sense. Think about how many people fly on airplanes on the regular, and how few of them really care about the view outside. If they really could find a way to make my winter trips out west cost $XX.xx there and back, instead of ~$4XX.xx, I’d be all about it.

OversteerMyBagel > djmt1 07/24/2016 at 18:40

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So... I really don’t see this ever panning out as a financially sensible venture, but I’m not sure whether that’s the point. Furthermore, I’m not necessarily sure that making more environmentally friendly transportation is the point, either.

I’m seriously wondering if this is Elon’s plan to indirectly develop the technology for making human space travel economically viable. Think about it, here. He needs to make a vessel that can opperate effectively in a vacuum, in an abusive environment, for decades. It will need to be able to couple and decouple airtight seals (to let people and cargo in and out) MILLIONS of times in its service life. It will also push a huge volume of high energy density, solar panels. If I were a multibillionaire trying to convince my investors to throw more development money into the solar panels I was developing for space, this would be a nice ostensible reason.

Now... do I, as a taxpayer, want to see tens or hundreds of billions of dollars (and you can bet that any project like this will be in the heady realm of Twelve figures worth of dollars) thrown at this thing, without certainty that it’ll work? Not if it’s going to wind up a private enterprise, and doubly so if this private enterprise doesn’t already have a working concept at a scale sufficient to work out the bugs that are going to be inherent in generating a vacuum over tens, hundreds, or thousands of miles of tube. ...or a working proof of concept of the vehicle period.