Imagine doing the 615-km inter-city commute from los Angeles to San Francisco in 35 minutes flat — not by air, rail, road or water, but by a fifth novel mode of transportation.
California-based tech billionaire Elon Musk, founder of the Tesla electric car and SpaceX, has unveiled the broad contours of such a futuristic mode which he calls “The Hyperloop”.
Set out in a 57-page blog, Musk’s plan involves putting commuters on crash-proof capsules or pods that would move on a solar-powered system along a vacuum tunnel somewhat like the pneumatic tubes used in office buildings to dispatch documents. The tubes Musk visualises would be mounted above ground on columns and pods could move as fast as 1,200 kmph.
It’s just an idea on paper, with Musk still to test the prototype of a system which he believes will revolutionise transportation between cities that are less than 1,500 km apart.
Yet, the 42-year-old South Africa-born Musk is sanguine that his bold idea could become a reality in seven to 10 years. He even worked out the comparative costs. The Hyperloop transit system, he says, could be developed at a cost of $6 billion as against California’s high-speed rail project that has grown in cost to about $68 billion.
In his concept paper, Musk asserts the system will be safer, faster, cheaper and convenient than all existing travel modes. He talks of two variants of the Hyperloop: A passenger only and a passenger plus vehicle version.
As he put it in his paper, “Hyperloop could transport people, vehicles, and freight between los Angeles and San Francisco in 35 minutes”. And the per-trip cost for a passenger could be as low as $20, he says.
“Transporting 7.4 million people each way and amortising the cost of $6 billion over 20 years gives a ticket price of $20 for a one-way trip for the passenger version of Hyperloop,” he writes, adding: “The passenger plus vehicle version is less than 9 per cent of the cost of the proposed passenger only high speed rail system between los Angeles and San Francisco.”
Even if the project might sound outlandish and one that might never see the light of day, Musk, given his track record of successes with start-up ventures, is someone taken with a degree of seriousness.
“If it were by anyone else, Monday’s display probably would be dismissed as the hyperbolic ramblings of a crank. But Musk is a straight-talking modern-day industrialist cast in the mould of a young Howard Hughes,” wrote The los Angeles Times, recalling how his wide range of start-ups has turned him into a celebrity researcher and entrepreneur.
Musk himself called the Hyperloop plan an “alpha design” that is still in its infancy and has sought critical feedback from the general public. He said he was putting out his idea as an open source that could be improved upon by others. Will he execute the Hyperloop plan himselfIJ Musk has said he he’s far too busy running Tesla and SpaceX.