djlong wrote: ↑Tue Oct 30, 2018 9:52 am
Well, now we have prototypes, including full-scale models. Bit by bit, piece by piece, it's happening. So far, nobody seems to have run into any showstoppers. That's not to say they *won't* - but let them keep trying until they do.
Well it's now 2023 and Hyperloop "projects" (barely proposals) all over the world are looking deader than ever. Anyone care to try to convince us this is "really happening"? Speaking of "showstoppers" news of late has been nothing but showstoppers. Last year Virgin Group pulled all funding and scrubbed its name from this venture and what was once Virgin Hyperloop One is now just back to being Hyperloop One. This past February rival venture HyperloopTT planned to merge with Forest Road Acquisitions to provide funding for them to go public but Forest Road bailed on them as well finding the concept not viable in todays market conditions. The latest news from Polish venture Nevomo (with funding support from SNCF) seems more like a reinvention of the cable car except using maglev technology for propulsion alone but still relying on steel wheels. Nothing particularly "Hyperloop" about it.
As of now and for the last 4 months Hyperloop One still cannot manage to provide a functioning website. They shifted their focus from passengers to freight but since when does freight that has been sitting on a cargo ship for 3 weeks suddenly need to get somewhere in 10 minutes? Not sure about you but to me this does not exactly scream "the future". Everything about it screams "so 10 years ago" when promotors of the concept kept embarrassing themselves by repeating tired and cliche catch phrases from TED Talks such as "inventing the future" and making simplistic comparisons to what "people use to say about the Wright brothers."
Furthermore the certain individual who re-popularized discussion of the 100 year old concept revealed to his biographer that he never actually intended for the Hyperloop to become a reality. It was simply a diversion to erode public support for the California High Speed Rail project and other budding HSR proposals throughout America. It was a political tool more than anything else and in that sense perhaps it succeeded in fulfilling its one an only objective. The Hyperloop at its core is all about securing the dominance of the private automobile in American life. Why do all the hard work of funding and developing effective public transit systems when fantasy concepts will theoretically make them obsolete? The fact that Hyperloops will never become reality is considered the feature not the bug.
Looking back now it's totally cringe what people were saying 5 to 10 years ago about this so called "visionary" that "just wants to save the planet and can do no wrong". The real visionaries were the people involved in the nuts and bolts at local planning level advocating for changes they would like to see such as better bus service so they can simply get to the train station in time to catch the train that will take them to work. The Hyperloop concept thrived on the naïveté of lay people including a media too eager to do cut/paste jobs repeating press releases from Hyperloop companies at their word and forego asking of any difficult questions.