Hyperloop One, the alternative to the high-speed train designed by Elon Musk, closes
Elon Musk's dream of creating a transportation system faster than a high-speed train has been derailed. Hyperloop One, one of the few companies that was still trying to make the magnate's vision a reality, has announced that it will liquidate all its assets, close its offices and lay off workers before the end of 2023..
After seven years and more than 450 million dollars invested, the company had only managed to create a small test track in a desert in the state of Nevada and its prototypes of the futuristic transportation system, the only ones that have actually transported people, have not even reached a speed of over 175 kilometers per hour. A scale model without human occupants managed to accelerate a little more, up to 324 kilometers per hour, a speed lower than what a modern high-speed train can achieve..
It is an undignified ending but in some ways expected. Elon Musk announced Hyperloop in 2013 simply as an idea accompanied by a technical document, with no intention of carrying it out personally.. “Maybe I will invest in or advise companies in charge of making it a reality in the future, but I don't have time right now,” he said then.. Tesla's valuation had not yet catapulted it to the top of the list of the world's greatest fortunes, but it was already enjoying enormous popularity and a handful of companies, including Hyperloop One, took up the idea and began developing prototypes..
Musk's original vision for this “fifth form of transportation” (complementary to the car, boat, train and plane) was to create a network of near-vacuum tubes capable of moving small pressurized capsules with passengers inside at a speed close to 1,200 kilometers per hour. A trip between Los Angeles and San Francisco with a system of these characteristics could take just 30 minutes, less than what a regular airliner takes and with the promise of picking up and dropping off the passenger in the very center of the cities..
The idea of using vacuum or partially evacuated tubes to transport capsules at high speed was not new. In 1799, British inventor George Medhurst proposed a similar system. Musk, however, added to the vision of Medhurst and other later engineers some recent advances, such as the use of magnetic levitation to accelerate the capsules and even theorized about a system that would allow the automobile to be mixed with this transportation system, with capsules. in which it would be possible to park a vehicle to transport it at high speed to a distant city and, upon arrival, continue driving normally.
Of all the companies and working groups trying to make this vision a reality, Hyperloop One, founded in 2014, had by far the most resources.. In 2017, businessman Richard Branson acquired the majority of the shares and joined it to the Virgin group, but during the pandemic the company lost most of its executive team, a sign that things were not going well..
The recent biography of Musk, written by Walter Isaacson, gives an idea of why. The Tesla owner did not spend much time considering the practical problems of the transportation system. According to Isaacson, one of the real reasons for the Hyperloop announcement in 2013 was to distract the Californian government from the construction of a conventional high-speed line, a project that Musk hated because of its high cost..
The closure of Hyperloop One joins several adjustments and changes in other companies with a similar mission. In Spain, Zeleros Global was the only one pursuing a similar goal. At the beginning of December, the company, which counts Juan Roig and Acciona among its shareholders, announced an ERE that will affect almost half of the workforce and an internal reorganization to focus its activity on sustainable mobility projects.