In 2013, Elon Musk published a book White papers Which sparked the idea of moving from Los Angeles to San Francisco in just 35 minutes via a vacuum tube, a system called the Hyperloop. The idea “grew out of his dislike of California’s proposed high-speed rail system.” According to By his biographer Ashley Vance.
Ten years later, the most famous startup to try to follow in Musk’s footsteps – Hyperloop One – is Close its doors. News of its demise broke less than two weeks into the Biden administration Announce $6 billion in funding for high-speed rail projects throughout California.
It’s a big win for public transit advocates, many of whom have spent decades searching not just for high-speed rail, but for better rail service overall. (Biden’s announcement also included funding for a project A large number of other railway projects across the country.) But it is not a clean victory by any means.
For one thing, many cities and states were lulled by the siren song of hyperloop, then left adrift. I still vividly remember reporting a story in 2018 about the collapse of Arrivo (another Hyperloop startup created by one of the founders of Hyperloop One) and calling the Colorado Department of Transportation to ask about the company’s collapse, only to realize this during the call. They had no idea what happened.
Colorado was not alone. Hyperloop One once promised West Virginia it would build $500 million testing and certification facility In the state. It also built a test track near Las Vegas where, briefly, it transported some people through a tube — a feat enough, apparently, for then-CEO Jay Walder. Claim It was “the first new form of mass transit in more than 100 years.”
There are still other projects and companies working on hyperloop technology, although most of them are outside the United States. Fortunately, this country was already building momentum to invest in the rail system, with an emphasis on faster trains.
The most well-known effort is Brightline, a company that recently expanded its existing services in Florida All the way to OrlandoThis allows passengers to travel there from as far away as Miami.
Brightline is also building what it calls “the nation’s first true high-speed rail network” between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. This project has received $3 billion in funding recently announced by the Biden administration, and is expected to begin work in early 2024.
Building high-speed rail will require more than just money. there Deep-rooted problems Standing in the way caused by years of deregulation. Projects of this size also struggle to stay on time and within budget. the last The biggest beneficiary of the newly announced federal funding — another $3 billion — is the high-speed rail project slated to run California’s backbone that was the original source of Musk’s ire.
Could the revival of high-speed rail risk once again competing with the world’s richest man? Perhaps, though train fans can take solace in how distracted Musk has been since the release of the 2013 white paper.
Moreover, with the exception of a few engineering competitions held by SpaceX, Musk has only undertaken his hyperloop projects at a superficial level.
Musk once tweeted that he had “verbal government approval” to do so Builds “Underground Hyperloop in New York-Ville-Palt-DC.” It was never built. In April 2022 it is claimed His tunneling efforts The Boring Company will attempt to “build an efficient hyperloop.” The next day company chirp “Hyperloop testing begins at scale later this year.” This also never happened.
Musk has spent the past decade barely getting to grips with hyperloop technology, mainly outsourcing his attempt to kill high-speed rail. With the death of Hyperloop One casting a pall over that premise, it increasingly looks like the billionaire has a decision to make: Does he care enough to find the time to finish the mission himself?