Hyperloop

[S'toon]

Seems CBC is all over the hyperloop these days.

It's simple: Imagine a capsule filled with people, hovering inside a tube, moving faster than a jet. Vancouver to Toronto in about three hours. Toronto to Montreal in 30 minutes. And Montreal to Miami in less than two hours. It would mean the ability to commute to work not just from another area code, but another province.

"We're not a plane, we're not a train, we're not a car. It's a Hyperloop," says the CEO of Hyperloop Technologies Rob Lloyd. "The construct of Hyperloop is like a transportation backbone that will do the same thing for the transportation and the movement of physical things as the internet has done for the digital world."

In 2013, Tesla founder Elon Musk sketched out his vision for a levitating pod that would carry people through a tube. Then he challenged others to design and build it. It's not exactly a new idea; as far back as the 1800s, New York built a pneumatic subway. But it was too difficult and too expensive. Until now.

Lloyd takes me on a tour of Hyperloop's facility in downtown Los Angeles. He ushers me outside to the back of the facility and points out a massive steel tube.

"So this is the size of the tube, it's about an 11-foot [3.35-metre] diameter," Lloyd says. "This is the size we're constructing out in the desert right now in North Las Vegas."

It seems somehow fitting that what some see as the future of mass transportation is being built next to an old rail yard. Unlike a train, a Hyperloop capsule wouldn't make any stops. You'd go straight from where you are to where you want to go.

"We remove the air pressure from that tube equivalent to being 160,000 feet [48,800 metres] above the Earth's surface," Lloyd says. "We create a pod which could carry either passengers or freight, and then we levitate that pod inside of a track in the tube. We use an electric motor to kind of propel it along. The result of that is you can go really fast."

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Full article at:
Hyperloop commuting could get you from Vancouver to Toronto in about 3 hours

 

[RDoc]

I don't think the current hyperloop concepts would work for hours. The passengers are all seated with no aisles to keep the capsule height low. Do they have bathrooms?

 

[palmer_md]

Its not designed/suited for travel that far. If you are going LA to NYC then take a plane. It's suited for the mid distance where lots of time is wasted getting into and out of an airport. Such as the LA to SF trip in Elon's original plan. At an average of 600mph it will only be a 30 minute trip and you should be able to go before you get in and hopefully you won't need to go again until the trip is over. With pods leaving every 10 minutes or so you should be able to schedule yourself safely onto one.

 

[jerry33]

Assuming that each leg of the trip is ~500 miles, there would be five stops of ten minutes, and five hours of travel so just under six hours. An airplane takes around 5.25 hours. However, you would add the two hours at the airport before the plane leaves, so the Hyperloop could get you there faster, although most likely there wouldn't be much difference.

 

[RDoc]

I've wondered if a lower speed hyperloop, say 200 mph or even less, would be useful for intercity routes of about 50 -100 miles or so. The travel times would still be short, but the lower velocity would allow significantly tighter turns, making siting the route much easier I'd think.

 

[aronth5]

MIT which came in first place in the recent school completion just unveiled their Magnetic Hyperloop pod.
Magnetic Hyperloop pod unveiled at MIT - BBC News


The Hyperloop is real, and we watched the first test in the Nevada desert

 

[HVM]

Anti-feminist chemist claims: Hyperloop will kill you:

For the lolz...

 

[Ben W]

Anti-feminist chemist claims: Hyperloop will kill you:

Well, if that guy built a Hyperloop, I sure wouldn't ride in it.

 

[FlatSix911]

Anti-feminist chemist claims: Hyperloop will kill you:

For the lolz...

Funny that no one has issues with a flying pressurized tube ... called an Aircraft

 

[HVM]

And here is the full video: