Elon Musk reveals the Hyperloop, new form of high-speed travel

Almost a year after Elon Musk, chief executive of Tesla Motors (TSLA) and SpaceX, first floated the idea of a superfast mode of transportation, he has finally revealed the details: a solar-powered, city-to-city elevated transit system that could take passengers and cars from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 30 minutes. In typical Musk fashion, the Hyperloop, as he calls it, immediately poses a challenge to the status quoin this case, Californias $70 billion high-speed train that has been knocked by Musk and others as too expensive, too slow, and too impractical.

In Musks vision, the Hyperloop would transport people via aluminum pods enclosed inside of steel tubes. He describes the design as looking like a shotgun with the tubes running side by side for most of the journey and closing the loop at either end. These tubes would be mounted on columns 50 to 100 yards apart, and the pods inside would travel up to 800 miles per hour. Some of this Musk has hinted at before; he now adds that pods could ferry cars as well as people. You just drive on, and the pod departs, Musk told Bloomberg Businessweek in his first interview about the Hyperloop.

Musk published a blog post detailing the Hyperloop on Monday. He also held a press call to go over the details.

Musk has built his entrepreneurial career attacking businesses he deems inefficient or uninspiring. He co-founded PayPal in a bid to shake up the banking industry, then used the fortune he made selling the startup to eBay (EBAY) to fund equally ambitious efforts in transportation. Tesla Motors, for example, has created the highest-performing, highest-rated all-electric car and a complementary network of charging stations scattered around North America. Meanwhile, SpaceX competes against entire nations in the market to send up satellites and resupply the International Space Station.

In the case of the Hyperloop, Musk started focusing on public transportation after he grew disenchanted with the plans for Californias high-speed rail system. Construction on the highly political, $70 billion project is meant to begin in earnest this year, with plans to link cities from San Diego to Sacramento by 2029. You have to look at what they say it will cost vs. the actual final costs, and I think its safe to say youre talking about a $100 billion-plus train, Musk says, adding that the train is too slow and a horrendous land rights mess.

Musk thinks the Hyperloop would avoid many of the land issues because its elevated. The tubes would, for the most part, follow I-5, the dreary but direct freeway between L.A. and San Francisco. Farmers would not have swaths of their land blocked by train tracks but could instead access their land between the columns. Musk figures the Hyperloop could be built for $6 billion with people-only pods, or $10 billion for the larger pods capable of holding people and cars. All together, his alternative would be four times as fast as Californias proposed train, at one-10th the cost. Tickets, Musk says, would be much cheaper than a plane ride. 

As for safety? Musk has heard of it. Theres an emergency brake, he says. Generally, though, the safe distance between the pods would be about 5 miles, so you could have about 70 pods between Los Angeles and San Francisco that leave every 30 seconds. Its like getting a ride on Space Mountain at Disneyland. Musk imagines that riding on the Hyperloop would be quite pleasant. It would have less lateral accelerationwhich is what tends to make people feel motion sickthan a subway ride, as the pod banks against the tube like an airplane, he says. Unlike an airplane, it is not subject to turbulence, so there are no sudden movements. It would feel supersmooth.

The Hyperloop was designed to link cities less than 1,000 miles apart that have high amounts of traffic between them, Musk says. Under 1,000 miles, the Hyperloop could have a nice edge over planes, which need a lot of time to take off and land. It makes sense for things like L.A. to San Francisco, New York to D.C., New York to Boston, Musk says. Over 1,000 miles, the tube cost starts to become prohibitive, and you dont want tubes every which way. You dont want to live in Tube Land. Right?

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Cool stuff. Hopefully he gets it up and running in the next few decades but damn, really seems like he's spreading himself thin with Tesla Motors, SpaceX, and now this.

this is what I thought of when I read the title.

Love that guy. SaintLeonidas

I like this idea.  I've been hearing about it for a while now.  Seems to me like burying it underground would be the least intrusive way of creating them, and would less likely be a target of terrorism, vandalism, and tinkering, but would probably increase the cost.

this is what I thought of when I read the title.

Sword-Demon

Brilliant idea, I actually think that making it run adjacent to modern highways factors into the actual cost reduction versus a high speed train, given that the land that must be appropriated is mostly already done so or cheap. burying it underground would only increase the cost of the project and terrorism would be a concern either way and in th event that such an event ocurred an underground facility would be much harder to safely evacuate and mantain. I hope that he gets around to making this, because I doubt that anyone else would care to make it a relaity even if it is a practical solution.