Hyperloop One, one of the companies that took the onus of building the fast, pod-based transportation system conceived by Elon Musk, is shutting down and all formal operationS will cease by the end of 2023, according to a report by Bloomberg. The tech startup been selling its assets (including testing tracks) and shutting down offices. The company is also laying off its employees.
The ambitious Hyperloop project is the brainchild of visionary engineer and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, which was taken up by Hyperloop Technologies in 2014. The company changed its name to Hyperloop One in 2016 and was renamed again to Virgin Hyperloop One after Richard Branson’s firm acquired it. The Virgin Group, however, removed its branding after Hyperloop One shifted its focus to hauling cargo.
After the tech startup shuts down, its entire intellectual property will go to DP World, the Dubai-based logistics company that happens to be the majority stakeholder.
Elon Musk: The Tech Mogul Who Gave The Idea For The Hyperloop
The idea for the hyperloop was first put out into the world by Elon Musk in a Tesla blog post back in 2013. In the post, Musk theorized about having a fifth mode of transport, the Hyperloop, and gave out more details about his vision in his alpha paper in the same post.
A Lot of Money Rode On The Promise of High-Speed Travel
Elon Musk’s idea sent a flurry of excitement amidst the engineers, companies and tech enthusiasts. As a result, Hyperloop One got some serious funding, which amounted to close to 450 million USD since its inception in 2014. It got some success in the endeavor too, but not on the level of Elon Musk’s predictions.
For example, the company produced some prototypes like the Hyperloop One XP-1 pod and the XP-2 pod. It even conducted a test in 2020 with real people inside the pods, but the top speed the experiment could manage was around 100mph (Musk has theorized the travel speed to be around 700mph).
What’s The Hyperloop?
The basic idea of the Hyperloop is to transport people through tubes built under or above ground at a very high speed. Musk had even proposed that with the Hyperloop, it could be possible to commute between Los Angeles and San Francisco in just 30 minutes.
For this “super-fast travel” however, the tubes would need to have a “special environment”. Creating this environment for fast travel presented numerous challenges, one of which is overcoming the Kantrowitz Limit, which, as Musk said, is “nature’s top speed law for a given tube to pod area ratio”. That and the other challenges a fully-functioning travel pod could face inside a tube, are detailed clearly in Musk’s alpha paper.
According to the Tesla and SpaceX CEO, the Hyperloop would require an air cushion to be able to manage speeds over 700mph. Travelling at that high a speed wouldn’t be possible using wheels, hence he gives the example of air bearings that have previously worked at Mach 1.1 speeds, with very low friction getting in their way. For the Hyperloop, however, it would be the travel pod that would be gliding on the air cushion inside the tube.
Now, to push the pods at a very high speed through the tube, Musk talks about using an external linear electric motor (“a round induction motor rolled flat”). He says that it would theoretically cause the pod to accelerate at a “high subsonic velocity and provide a periodic
reboost roughly every 70 miles.”
The Distance Theorized for The Hyperloop
Musk said that the Hyperloop was the “right solution for the specific case of high traffic city pairs that are less than about 1500 km or 900 miles apart.”
Why The Hyperloop Is Shutting Down
As per a document reviewed by Bloomberg, Hyperloop One merged with a shell company in April 2023. “At that time, the value of shares in most classes was written down to zero cents, and the shareholders of the shell company became the only owners of Hyperloop One.”, says the report.
Though the idea of the hyperloop is a captivating, one that aims to end traffic problems and also save time in commute, the startup never got a contract to build an actual working hyperloop. A few of the senior officials of the company reportedly also courted controversies, which include allegations of fraud and sexual harrassment. According to the report, Hyperloop One officials are tight-lipped on the whole matter.
All Is Not Lost For Elon Musk’s Hyperloop Idea Yet
Hyperloop One wasn’t the only company that started working on Elon Musk’s idea. As per the report, there are other companies who are trying to develop their own Hyperloop prototypes, each progressing at its own pace. These include Hyperloop Transportation Technologies Inc., Hardt Hyperloop, and Swisspod Technologies.
