10 ms·

Hyperloop Gets Test Track in California

145 points by benblodgett 11y ago

skizm 11y ago
Isn't hyperloop not supposed to be efficient unless it runs over 1000 miles or something like that? It has to basically ride in the valley of a soundwave and to get up to speed and back to rest takes the majority of the time and a good amount of runway.
rmxt 11y ago
A 5-mile test track won't be big enough to examine the biggest concerns: thermal and seismic. The alpha brochure linked to in the OP barely touches on the two. Here [1] is a better analysis/take-down of what thermal issues such a long structure will encounter. (TL;DR: A 400-mile long continuous structure will need to accommodate 1000 feet of thermal movement over it's length and lifetime.) Seismic is another beast: it requires a much more thorough examination than the cursory glance it was given in the alpha paper. [1] http://www.leancrew.com/all-this/2013/08/hyperloop/ http://www.leancrew.com/all-this/2013/08/hyperloop/ Thermal effects on Maglev research: https://www.lib.utexas.edu/etd/d/2007/kimh10315/kimh10315.pdf https://www.lib.utexas.edu/etd/d/2007/kimh10315/kimh10315.pd... EDIT: Apologies for the negativity... I hope this reads as more of thoughtful criticism, rather than as being hypercritical.
- Retric 11y ago
  Thermal expansion is not really an issue that gets worse with distance, as the track can simply be made from independent segments connected with expansion joints. The issue is being able to cross from segment A to segment B not the number of such segments. In other words if it works on a test track it scales just fine, but getting that first connector to work is the hard part. Earthquakes require active dampening which defiantly increases costs, but a larger issue is how to cross fault lines as you need a very large turning radius so very long segments of track need to be able to move. AKA you can't do this: http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2003/fs014-03/pipeline.html http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2003/fs014-03/pipeline.html Unless you’re willing to really slow down. PS: Also of note, you are going to need safety exits on a fairly regular basis and some way to quickly add air to the pipe as people are not going to be able to walk hundreds of miles in case of an issue.
  - stcredzero 11y ago
    But don't we have a window of minutes to shut down the system in case of an earthquake? I thought we could get advance warning from P waves. (This doesn't work if you're in the epicenter, unfortunately.) If the car gets badly damaged, but the passenger stays alive, and the system can be fixed in a reasonable amount of time, then this is fine performance for a major earthquake event. High speed trains have similar performance in the same situation.
    - dragonwriter 11y ago
      > But don't we have a window of minutes to shut down the system in case of an earthquake? No. > I thought we could get advance warning from P waves. (This doesn't work if you're in the epicenter, unfortunately.) Yes, but the advance warning is on the order of seconds, not minutes (per Wikipedia, for deep, distant, large earthquakes, 60-90 seconds is possible, but that's still at most a minute and a half.)
      - stcredzero 11y ago
        Even so, I thought that the failure mode for tube misalignment of hundredths or even tenths of an inch would result in stoppage, and perhaps damaged "track" and cars, with trapped passengers. This isn't so different from the performance of high speed rail during natural disasters.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  - rmxt 11y ago
    Thermal is an issue that gets worse with distance. Did you look at the article that I posted above? If you are proposing expansion/slip joints at every pier, that runs directly counter to the proposal which states that expansion joints will only be needed near the stations. [1, pg. 27] If we go according to the proposal, the slip joint at the stations on the test track will only need to accommodate ~9 feet of movement (5280x5x6.5x10^-6x100)/2 compared to something an order of magnitude higher for a full-scale track. Successfully designing for earthquakes does not necessarily mean active damping. (That is, it is not "required" as you state.) Yes, many large structures use specially designed mass or viscous dampers for dynamic loading (Citigroup Building, NYC; Taipei 101; Millennium Bridge, London), but others are designed to fail safely such that life and structure are preserved to the greatest extent possible. Specifically for bridge structures, there is the notion of plastic hinging in visible locations. [2] This way, the failures can be identified and repaired before normal use resumes. Here are some relevant state DOT guidelines. [3] [1] http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/hyperloop_alpha-20130812.pdf http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/hyperloop_alpha-201... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_hinge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_hinge [3] http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/esc/techpubs/manual/bridgemanuals/bridge-memo-to-designer/page/Section%2020/20-6m.pdf http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/esc/techpubs/manual/bridgemanuals/b...
- brenschluss 11y ago
  I'd imagine that there's a great deal of prior work, research, and implementation detail on Maglev trains in Japan on this very issue. Not to say that you're not right, but that this test track is probably precisely what's needed for an initial test, since the other issues (commonly solved with expansion joints) are being actively tackled/solved by many different industries.
  - rmxt 11y ago
    According to Wikipedia [1], the only 3 passenger service operational Maglev lines have lengths of 18.95 miles, 5.5 miles, and 3.8 miles, which are in China, Japan and South Korea respectively. That would make it seem like it is far from a "solved" issue. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maglev#Operational_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maglev#Operational_systems
- digikata 11y ago
  It should be a pretty good step towards getting measurements on thermal issues to then spec the needed tolerances with better basis on reality... You could also build segments with the intent of inducing displacements to study what's needed for seismic inputs.
hyperbovine 11y ago
"If the position of the wall deviates from straightness by a few thousandths of an inch, you could crash ... if you lose the vacuum in the tube, everybody in the tube will crash ... the vehicle's compressor ... can't fail, or the pods will crash ... The 5-mile test track is estimated to cost about $100 million, which Hyperloop Transportation Technologies hopes to pay for with its initial public offering (IPO) later this year." This article will one day be featured in a museum exhibit on laughably divorced-from-reality bubblethink.
- grecy 11y ago
  I'm willing to bet there were similar articles about the first commercial airliner, the first space vehicles, and many other difficult problems. Just because it sounds hard and there are lots of challenges, don't give in to the nay sayers.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- mentat 11y ago
  Perhaps as an example of journalistic failures? Reading the actual paper this is just not true.
- pbreit 11y ago
  Are you referring to the over-the-top negativity of an uninvolved spectator?
- jonknee 11y ago
  You could have said the same thing about a guy trying to build a Mars colony...
  - danielweber 11y ago
    AS someone who wants to go to Mars, anyone trying to sell you investment shares in a colonization effort is a scammer.
geon 11y ago
> The problem with traveling in an evacuated tube is, if you lose the vacuum in the tube, everybody in the tube will crash Wouldn't that be a "crash" into a gradually rising air preassure? Something like a smooth deacceleration.
- WalterSear 11y ago
  Turbulence is probably going to be an issue.
- VLM 11y ago
  I wouldn't worry about an air valve being left open quite as much as the vacuum being broken because a big chunk of concrete (or whatever) is now sucked into the tube in the path of the train. Perhaps in the very unlikely event it ever rains again in California, water in the tube could be an issue, or lightning damage. That brings up the logical question of how many customers you'll have if none of them have any water to drink. Perhaps this would make more sense as a project under the Chicago Regional Transit Authority, or parallel to the existing Acela track on the coast.
  - eclipxe 11y ago
    Yeah because CA is going to depopulate because of the drought. Come on be realistic.
  - danielweber 11y ago
    > because a big chunk of concrete (or whatever) is now sucked into the tube in the path of the train 1 atmosphere of pressure isn't going to suck in anything concrete, except maybe in dust format.
- Balgair 11y ago
  No. Depending on the failure mode, maybe, but that is not the concern here. A slow leak that the high-vac pumps cannot deal with is a slow deceleration. A massive crack will cause quite the stir in the tube. Think of a balloon. When you inflate a balloon you put, maybe, 1.1 atms more into it. This is about 1/10th that of the hyperloop system. You know how loud even a simple party balloon can be, and the forces that you deal with.
ChuckMcM 11y ago
Sigh "The 5-mile test track is estimated to cost about $100 million, which Hyperloop Transportation Technologies hopes to pay for with its initial public offering (IPO) later this year, according to Navigant's blog." Run away, run far far away. They might as well do a kickstarter. Seriously, what sort of "business" is a 5 mile test track? Lets say you charged $25 for a "5 minute ride on the hyperloop!" and you got 8 people in it, and you had perfect efficiency, and you ran non-stop for 10 hrs a day, 7 days a week then $100M is 414 days. And that isn't including the cost of running the ride in the first place. I guess I'll find out why they think I should think about investing in their S-1 but for right now, I am totally not seeing it.
- gargarplex 11y ago
  $/mi will reduce with scale.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    That's an interesting one. This is actually contrary to most conventional wisdom regarding such projects, rail for instance does not have a reduced cost / mile if the distances get longer. (Airtravel does, however).
- pavlov 11y ago
  As an IPO this sounds similar to most biotech/pharma startups. These companies routinely IPO in the $50-100 million range when all they have is a patent, some promising data but no approved clinical trials and no business. Of course it's different because there's a clear post-IPO acquisition market for biotechs. Not quite as clear who would buy Hyperloop if it's proven to work...
  - bliti 11y ago
    It seems to be related to how startups are suddenly valuated at billions without much of a moat or intrinsic value. Just for having "users".
    - 11y ago
huuu 11y ago
* Invent something totaly new * Test it on a small scale * Get a lot of negative comments on HN Com'on people. This might be the transportation of the future!
- BinaryIdiot 11y ago
  I could see this becoming a new way to transport goods but as outlined in the hyperloop white papers there is little room for error when transporting people and I'm not so sure that's the best, initial approach. I think using this as a delivery system first, prove it out and increase safety as you go along is the way to go. It should be far cheaper to do it on physical goods first (hell you may even be able to skimp on the safety in some aspects), make lots of money transporting things and then work on a people version.
  - netfire 11y ago
    We'd like to think that there is little error when it comes to transporting people, but most (if not all) of our current means of transportation are prone to accident. Here's some stats: - For planes, there were 4,394 near-misses in 2012 [1] - There were an estimated 5,419,000 automobile accidents in 2010, just in the US, resulting in 32,999 deaths [2] - And the recent Amtrak train derailment, which could have been prevented (although why the prevention mechanism needs to be in the track, and not on the train itself seems strange). [3] There is also an estimated 2,280 collisions at public/private crossings resulting in 267 deaths in 2014. [4] The question in my mind is whether the proposed Hyperloop system would be more prone to accident than our current systems of transit. I doubt our current means of transit would fare well under some of the proposed scenarios in the comments. [1] - http://news.discovery.com/tech/airplane-near-misses-how-often-do-they-happen-140527.htm http://news.discovery.com/tech/airplane-near-misses-how-ofte... [2] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in... [3] - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/13/derailed-amtrak-train-safety-controls_n_7279166.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/13/derailed-amtrak-tra... [4] - http://oli.org/about-us/news/collisions-casulties http://oli.org/about-us/news/collisions-casulties
saosebastiao 11y ago
This is hard for me to do because 1) I probably respect Musk more than any living engineer, 2) I can't stand the CHSRA and their incompetence, and 3) I'm arguing from my comparatively unsuccessful keyboard against someone who is in every way my superior when it comes to engineering and business, and I know I'm gonna be the one to look like a fool here. But I'm going to do it anyway and try as best as I can to avoid the middlebrow dismissal. Hyperloop is a nerd dream and it doesn't have a chance at financial success. The fundamental problem has nothing to do with the technology, which appears amazing and viable. If anyone can overcome the few nagging engineering issues, Musk and Co are the ones to do it. No, it has to do with not having a viable market plan, suffering from very common delusional assumptions in business models that have fucked over railroad capitalists for well over 2 centuries now, including three major railroad bubbles (Railway Mania as well as the Panics of 1893 and 1873). [1] The faulty assumption is that the viability of the railroad hinges on the ability to go from major city to major city as fast as possible. This is only partially true. Of course you want to be as fast as possible, but the worst possible way to be as fast as possible is to eliminate stops in smaller cities and towns, which is exactly what Hyperloop is planning on doing. Those small towns usually end up being the most prominent drivers of revenue, overshadowing the large-city-to-large-city revenue by an order of magnitude. Even the CHSRA business plan shows that their revenue model does not depend heavily on the SF<->LA passenger volume. You can typically think of demand for travel in terms of cultural dependencies. I have a need for employment, therefore I travel to work. I have a need to visit family, therefore I travel to family. I have a need for tuna, therefore I travel to the wharf market. I have a need for a visa, therefore I travel to the embassy. These cultural dependencies result in a demand distribution for travel that roughly fits a power law profile. The demand for near travel (x > 0) is exponentially greater than further travel (y > x). It is not hard to speculate that the passenger miles travelled by Angelenos traveling to work outweighs the aggregate passenger miles travelled between Los Angeles to San Francisco on any given day...LA County's Metropolitan Transit Authority alone accounts for 5.4M passenger miles a day [2], approximately equivalent to 14,000 passengers traveling between SF and LA. More importantly, the larger the city, the more your cultural needs are met by your own city. If you live in Los Angeles, your probabilistic need to travel to San Francisco is much lower than someone from Fresno, because your needs are mostly met by Los Angeles. When I lived in Stockton, I travelled to Oakland or San Francisco almost on a weekly basis...but now that I live in Seattle, I travel outside of the Puget Sound region maybe 2-3 times per year. In the very beginning, this faulty assumption was actually a safer assumption to make than it is today, due to the lack of airlines and automobiles. The railroad literally was the fastest way to get from city to city, with no exceptions. But now it isn't. Once you go over about 300 miles, a well timed trip by plane is often as fast or faster (a lot of people will say that 500 miles is the threshold of competitiveness, but travel market share peaks and then drops off after about 300 miles). Under 100 miles, the freedom of a car to leave without a schedule often makes cars faster. Any time you have competition, you lower your market share, with your comparative competitiveness determining how much market share you lose. So this is how it has played out hundreds if not thousands of times in the history of railroads: 1) Some big city businessman sees a slow trip to a city that he commonly has to travel to. He sees a demand for faster transportation. He throws together a business plan that makes the correct assumption that City A has X people, City B has Y people, and a fast connection between them will yield Z% market share of the travel D demand between them. He figures that in order to get that fast travel time, he can only stop at the largest cities in between...or possibly no stops at all! He then looks up a similar city or railroad (lets say B & S railroad), looks at ridership figures, and tries to back into D, and then inflates the Z figure to reflect the fact that his railroad will be faster because there are fewer stops. Therefore his revenue model becomes X * 0.5D * Z * P + Y * 0.5D * Z * P (where P == ticket price) 2) He sells some stocks and bonds (or in the case of modern capitalism, lobbies for grants), and builds a railroad. From this article, it looks like this step is starting. 3) After a few months, he realizes his model is inaccurate. At this point, he will do one of two things: either advertise more or remove stops to make it faster, both of which exacerbate the cash flow problem. 4) After about a year, he is bankrupt. The bondholders reclaim as much as they can by selling the railroad to some other capitalist who will with high assurance do exactly the same thing, but with a greater chance of success due to a much lower investment. And thus plays out the railroad consolidation game. In terms of the model, his failure was actually three failures multiplied together. 1) He assumed that the ridership of B & S railroad was primarily between termini. This meant his D figure was too low because he vastly underestimated the demand to and from the small intermediate cities. 2) He assumed that B & S ridership figures were rides at full terminus-to-terminus prices, therefore inflating P. 3) He assumed that D was a linear function of population, ignoring that the larger the city the lower the cultural need for travel, thereby inflating D. The only thing he got right was X and Y. The practical implication of this is that if you want a successful, profit-maximizing railroad, you need to optimize the need for speed with the need to pick up passengers along the way. If you are a capitalist that cares about maximizing profit, this unfortunately means having a railroad that looks like a slow kludge, because it means making unglamourous stops in unglamourous towns. And it also means that technophile idealism puts you at a competitive disadvantage. [1] for more information/history, this is a great writeup, with a couple chapters that clearly describe this delusion. It is very long, but amazingly interesting and worth reading outside of this reference for anyone interested in technocapitalism or bubble economics. http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/hallucinations.pdf http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/hallucinations.pdf) [2] http://www.apta.com/resources/statistics/Documents/FactBook/2013-APTA-Fact-Book.pdf http://www.apta.com/resources/statistics/Documents/FactBook/...
Osmium 11y ago
Regardless of what you think of this specific project, I'm encouraged that people are still 'Thinking Big'. Making the future happen is up to us!
sixQuarks 11y ago
When the US government literally loses track of $100 million in cash, no one blinks an eye. When a guy who has built an electric car company AND a space rocket company proposes a revolutionary transportation alternative and has people excited enough to spend $100 million on it, people go nuts. I can't believe how small-minded some people are.
- the_falcon 11y ago
  He didn't, this is not elon musks project. Elon musks project is called Hyperloop Technology. This CO is called Hyperloop Transportation Technology backed by a PR Firm called Jumpstarter
- the_falcon 11y ago
  From the article "Separately, Musk has said he plans to build his own 5-mile test track, likely in Texas, for companies and students to test out potential Hyperloop designs."
wehadfun 11y ago
The article makes it sound like a flea could come in there and kill everyone.
aetherson 11y ago
The biggest problem with this headline is that it suggests that the hyperloop is "getting" a test track. When the actual situation appears to be that the hyperloop is getting a plan for a test track that is heavily contingent on highly speculative funding. If it actually had a test track, then most of the discussion in these comments could be obviated.
- the_falcon 11y ago
  Exactly, this was a PR Release for a hyperloop cash grab in hopes they IPO
sixQuarks 11y ago
When the US government literally loses track of $100 million in cash, no one blinks an eye. When a guy who has built an electric car company AND a space rocket company proposes a revolutionary transportation alternative and has people excited enough to spend $100 million on it, people go nuts. I can't believe how small-minded some people are.
coderjames 11y ago
I'm clearly missing something important because otherwise somebody would have built this already, but instead of using the fans for levitation as proposed, why not keep using the magnets? I'm imagining a tube with (8?) magnets equally-spaced around the perimeter so that the carriage inside automatically stays centered in the tube. We already know how to toggle the magnets to produce forward motion (see maglev trains). Could still use the partial-vacuum to keep drag down. And you remove the single-point failure mechanisms of the fans on the carriage and minor misalignment of tube segments.
- throwaway41597 11y ago
  I think it's because you'd need a continuous line of magnets over the full tube, as opposed to accelerators at intervals so it's probably orders of magnitudes cheaper. I don't know about the reliability of compressors but I'd say you could have a couple onboard if they're an issue.
the_falcon 11y ago
The wording of this article is interesting. I personally know the people behind this project. This is from a PR firm, and kickstarter knockoff who 'lost' a lot of my friends startups money This company (Hyperloop Transportation Technologies) got no funding, Hyperloop Technologies did ($8.5m).(which is in reality a PR firm called jumpstarter pr in El Segundo) They are hoping to raise the funding at IPO "Now, the company Hyperloop Transportation Technologies Inc. (which is not affiliated with Musk or Tesla) has inked a deal with landowners in central California to build the world's first Hyperloop test track" "The 5-mile test track is estimated to cost about $100 million, which Hyperloop Transportation Technologies hopes to pay for with its initial public offering (IPO) later this year, according to Navigant's blog." Musk is building his own Separately, Musk has said he plans to build his own 5-mile test track, likely in Texas, for companies and students to test out potential Hyperloop designs.
Animats 11y ago
They have a web site.[1] They claim to be hiring. They claim to have funding. The web site looks like someone loaded up the generic cool new startup template and stuck in some concept art in the indicated places. There's no useful information about the technology or the business. The big problem with this is not the technology. It's land acquisition. As with high speed rail, you need a right of way that's straight or has very large radius turns. There are sections of I-5 that are straight enough, but high-speed travel between Bakersfield and Tracy isn't that useful. Tunnels can help, but are not cheap. China is building high speed rail through urban areas on pylons. As with most elevated rail, the reality is much wider and more heavily built than the concept art. (China's maglev is a one-off demo; China's high speed rail system is huge.) [1] http://hyperlooptech.com/ http://hyperlooptech.com/
- Igglyboo 11y ago
  Their logo looks extremely similar to the Visual Studio 2010 logo. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1LB4PjiDdgU/Ur_tPvwj5HI/AAAAAAAAAo0/91HKtveyFok/s1600/VisualStudio2010.png http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1LB4PjiDdgU/Ur_tPvwj5HI/AAAAAAAAAo...
  - sevenadrian 11y ago
    Ha, I knew I recognized it. Thanks for proving I'm not crazy, at least because of this.
  - swalsh 11y ago
    I think they need to change either the colors or the symbol... but having both is throwing me off :D
- danielweber 11y ago
  The Hyperloop paper (as originally proposed) was going to use pylons to ease land acquisition costs. How much this helps is unclear to me.
- melling 11y ago
  China is now building a low-speed maglev that should be operational later this year. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_S1,_BCR http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_S1,_BCR China opened 32 new high-speed rail routes in one day last December. http://qz.com/308791/china-flexes-its-high-speed-rail-muscles-by-rolling-out-32-new-routes-in-one-day http://qz.com/308791/china-flexes-its-high-speed-rail-muscle... By the time the hyperloop connects the 400 miles between SF and LA, China will have 30,000-40,000 miles of high-speed rail.
joelrunyon 11y ago
Why would they build this in California? Why not pick a place in pretty much ANY other place in the US that has demonstrably cheaper land.
- devindotcom 11y ago
  I was thinking it makes sense in that California, sort of following I-5, is where the Hyperloop would supposedly go... but no. There's no reason to construct a proof of concept track there. Go buy some flats in the middle of nowhere and get a working prototype going first.
  - Gibbon1 11y ago
    Makes sense if you're Musk and want to jot down to Santa Monica to see your mistress Friday evening. (Come on seriously this is what this is all about, you know it, I know it) Not so good if you want to commute to your worker bee cubical job Monday morning.
- djcapelis 11y ago
  They will presumably be building this out in the middle of nowhere in CA, not in a downtown urban core. But it is helpful to be in driving distance to a metropolis with a high degree of excellent engineering talent. People from out of state assume everything in CA is nuts expensive but you have to remember the state is also full of farmland, forests and deserts.
joshdance 11y ago
In the article they quote someone as saying if you lose the vacuum everyone crashes? That seems to be exactly opposite what I read in other articles. Is that true?
trhway 11y ago
if we're going to build a 5 mile evacuated pipe while not try to use it as a prototype of a space launch? At modest 50G acceleration the exit speed would be 2.5km/s - not a production, but it would be a good test prototype to get real funding for the real deal to the top of Kilimanjaro.
- pas 11y ago
  Because you'd still hit dense air at the top with 2.5km/s. You would need to go a about as high as the blackbird could fly to exit the tube with some sort of grace. (Or maybe even higher.) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9d/Comparison_US_standard_atmosphere_1962.svg/2000px-Comparison_US_standard_atmosphere_1962.svg.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9d/Com...

145 points by benblodgett 11y ago

skizm 11y ago

Isn't hyperloop not supposed to be efficient unless it runs over 1000 miles or something like that? It has to basically ride in the valley of a soundwave and to get up to speed and back to rest takes the majority of the time and a good amount of runway.

rmxt 11y ago

A 5-mile test track won't be big enough to examine the biggest concerns: thermal and seismic. The alpha brochure linked to in the OP barely touches on the two. Here [1] is a better analysis/take-down of what thermal issues such a long structure will encounter. (TL;DR: A 400-mile long continuous structure will need to accommodate 1000 feet of thermal movement over it's length and lifetime.) Seismic is another beast: it requires a much more thorough examination than the cursory glance it was given in the alpha paper. [1] http://www.leancrew.com/all-this/2013/08/hyperloop/ http://www.leancrew.com/all-this/2013/08/hyperloop/ Thermal effects on Maglev research: https://www.lib.utexas.edu/etd/d/2007/kimh10315/kimh10315.pdf https://www.lib.utexas.edu/etd/d/2007/kimh10315/kimh10315.pd... EDIT: Apologies for the negativity... I hope this reads as more of thoughtful criticism, rather than as being hypercritical.

Retric 11y ago
Thermal expansion is not really an issue that gets worse with distance, as the track can simply be made from independent segments connected with expansion joints. The issue is being able to cross from segment A to segment B not the number of such segments. In other words if it works on a test track it scales just fine, but getting that first connector to work is the hard part. Earthquakes require active dampening which defiantly increases costs, but a larger issue is how to cross fault lines as you need a very large turning radius so very long segments of track need to be able to move. AKA you can't do this: http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2003/fs014-03/pipeline.html http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2003/fs014-03/pipeline.html Unless you’re willing to really slow down. PS: Also of note, you are going to need safety exits on a fairly regular basis and some way to quickly add air to the pipe as people are not going to be able to walk hundreds of miles in case of an issue.
- stcredzero 11y ago
  But don't we have a window of minutes to shut down the system in case of an earthquake? I thought we could get advance warning from P waves. (This doesn't work if you're in the epicenter, unfortunately.) If the car gets badly damaged, but the passenger stays alive, and the system can be fixed in a reasonable amount of time, then this is fine performance for a major earthquake event. High speed trains have similar performance in the same situation.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    > But don't we have a window of minutes to shut down the system in case of an earthquake? No. > I thought we could get advance warning from P waves. (This doesn't work if you're in the epicenter, unfortunately.) Yes, but the advance warning is on the order of seconds, not minutes (per Wikipedia, for deep, distant, large earthquakes, 60-90 seconds is possible, but that's still at most a minute and a half.)
    - stcredzero 11y ago
      Even so, I thought that the failure mode for tube misalignment of hundredths or even tenths of an inch would result in stoppage, and perhaps damaged "track" and cars, with trapped passengers. This isn't so different from the performance of high speed rail during natural disasters.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- rmxt 11y ago
  Thermal is an issue that gets worse with distance. Did you look at the article that I posted above? If you are proposing expansion/slip joints at every pier, that runs directly counter to the proposal which states that expansion joints will only be needed near the stations. [1, pg. 27] If we go according to the proposal, the slip joint at the stations on the test track will only need to accommodate ~9 feet of movement (5280x5x6.5x10^-6x100)/2 compared to something an order of magnitude higher for a full-scale track. Successfully designing for earthquakes does not necessarily mean active damping. (That is, it is not "required" as you state.) Yes, many large structures use specially designed mass or viscous dampers for dynamic loading (Citigroup Building, NYC; Taipei 101; Millennium Bridge, London), but others are designed to fail safely such that life and structure are preserved to the greatest extent possible. Specifically for bridge structures, there is the notion of plastic hinging in visible locations. [2] This way, the failures can be identified and repaired before normal use resumes. Here are some relevant state DOT guidelines. [3] [1] http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/hyperloop_alpha-20130812.pdf http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/hyperloop_alpha-201... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_hinge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_hinge [3] http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/esc/techpubs/manual/bridgemanuals/bridge-memo-to-designer/page/Section%2020/20-6m.pdf http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/esc/techpubs/manual/bridgemanuals/b...
brenschluss 11y ago
I'd imagine that there's a great deal of prior work, research, and implementation detail on Maglev trains in Japan on this very issue. Not to say that you're not right, but that this test track is probably precisely what's needed for an initial test, since the other issues (commonly solved with expansion joints) are being actively tackled/solved by many different industries.
- rmxt 11y ago
  According to Wikipedia [1], the only 3 passenger service operational Maglev lines have lengths of 18.95 miles, 5.5 miles, and 3.8 miles, which are in China, Japan and South Korea respectively. That would make it seem like it is far from a "solved" issue. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maglev#Operational_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maglev#Operational_systems
digikata 11y ago
It should be a pretty good step towards getting measurements on thermal issues to then spec the needed tolerances with better basis on reality... You could also build segments with the intent of inducing displacements to study what's needed for seismic inputs.

hyperbovine 11y ago

"If the position of the wall deviates from straightness by a few thousandths of an inch, you could crash ... if you lose the vacuum in the tube, everybody in the tube will crash ... the vehicle's compressor ... can't fail, or the pods will crash ... The 5-mile test track is estimated to cost about $100 million, which Hyperloop Transportation Technologies hopes to pay for with its initial public offering (IPO) later this year." This article will one day be featured in a museum exhibit on laughably divorced-from-reality bubblethink.

grecy 11y ago
I'm willing to bet there were similar articles about the first commercial airliner, the first space vehicles, and many other difficult problems. Just because it sounds hard and there are lots of challenges, don't give in to the nay sayers.
deleted 11y ago
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mentat 11y ago
Perhaps as an example of journalistic failures? Reading the actual paper this is just not true.
pbreit 11y ago
Are you referring to the over-the-top negativity of an uninvolved spectator?
jonknee 11y ago
You could have said the same thing about a guy trying to build a Mars colony...
- danielweber 11y ago
  AS someone who wants to go to Mars, anyone trying to sell you investment shares in a colonization effort is a scammer.

geon 11y ago

> The problem with traveling in an evacuated tube is, if you lose the vacuum in the tube, everybody in the tube will crash Wouldn't that be a "crash" into a gradually rising air preassure? Something like a smooth deacceleration.

WalterSear 11y ago
Turbulence is probably going to be an issue.
VLM 11y ago
I wouldn't worry about an air valve being left open quite as much as the vacuum being broken because a big chunk of concrete (or whatever) is now sucked into the tube in the path of the train. Perhaps in the very unlikely event it ever rains again in California, water in the tube could be an issue, or lightning damage. That brings up the logical question of how many customers you'll have if none of them have any water to drink. Perhaps this would make more sense as a project under the Chicago Regional Transit Authority, or parallel to the existing Acela track on the coast.
- eclipxe 11y ago
  Yeah because CA is going to depopulate because of the drought. Come on be realistic.
- danielweber 11y ago
  > because a big chunk of concrete (or whatever) is now sucked into the tube in the path of the train 1 atmosphere of pressure isn't going to suck in anything concrete, except maybe in dust format.
Balgair 11y ago
No. Depending on the failure mode, maybe, but that is not the concern here. A slow leak that the high-vac pumps cannot deal with is a slow deceleration. A massive crack will cause quite the stir in the tube. Think of a balloon. When you inflate a balloon you put, maybe, 1.1 atms more into it. This is about 1/10th that of the hyperloop system. You know how loud even a simple party balloon can be, and the forces that you deal with.

ChuckMcM 11y ago

Sigh "The 5-mile test track is estimated to cost about $100 million, which Hyperloop Transportation Technologies hopes to pay for with its initial public offering (IPO) later this year, according to Navigant's blog." Run away, run far far away. They might as well do a kickstarter. Seriously, what sort of "business" is a 5 mile test track? Lets say you charged $25 for a "5 minute ride on the hyperloop!" and you got 8 people in it, and you had perfect efficiency, and you ran non-stop for 10 hrs a day, 7 days a week then $100M is 414 days. And that isn't including the cost of running the ride in the first place. I guess I'll find out why they think I should think about investing in their S-1 but for right now, I am totally not seeing it.

gargarplex 11y ago
$/mi will reduce with scale.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  That's an interesting one. This is actually contrary to most conventional wisdom regarding such projects, rail for instance does not have a reduced cost / mile if the distances get longer. (Airtravel does, however).
pavlov 11y ago
As an IPO this sounds similar to most biotech/pharma startups. These companies routinely IPO in the $50-100 million range when all they have is a patent, some promising data but no approved clinical trials and no business. Of course it's different because there's a clear post-IPO acquisition market for biotechs. Not quite as clear who would buy Hyperloop if it's proven to work...
- bliti 11y ago
  It seems to be related to how startups are suddenly valuated at billions without much of a moat or intrinsic value. Just for having "users".
  - 11y ago

huuu 11y ago

* Invent something totaly new * Test it on a small scale * Get a lot of negative comments on HN Com'on people. This might be the transportation of the future!

BinaryIdiot 11y ago
I could see this becoming a new way to transport goods but as outlined in the hyperloop white papers there is little room for error when transporting people and I'm not so sure that's the best, initial approach. I think using this as a delivery system first, prove it out and increase safety as you go along is the way to go. It should be far cheaper to do it on physical goods first (hell you may even be able to skimp on the safety in some aspects), make lots of money transporting things and then work on a people version.
- netfire 11y ago
  We'd like to think that there is little error when it comes to transporting people, but most (if not all) of our current means of transportation are prone to accident. Here's some stats: - For planes, there were 4,394 near-misses in 2012 [1] - There were an estimated 5,419,000 automobile accidents in 2010, just in the US, resulting in 32,999 deaths [2] - And the recent Amtrak train derailment, which could have been prevented (although why the prevention mechanism needs to be in the track, and not on the train itself seems strange). [3] There is also an estimated 2,280 collisions at public/private crossings resulting in 267 deaths in 2014. [4] The question in my mind is whether the proposed Hyperloop system would be more prone to accident than our current systems of transit. I doubt our current means of transit would fare well under some of the proposed scenarios in the comments. [1] - http://news.discovery.com/tech/airplane-near-misses-how-often-do-they-happen-140527.htm http://news.discovery.com/tech/airplane-near-misses-how-ofte... [2] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in... [3] - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/13/derailed-amtrak-train-safety-controls_n_7279166.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/13/derailed-amtrak-tra... [4] - http://oli.org/about-us/news/collisions-casulties http://oli.org/about-us/news/collisions-casulties

saosebastiao 11y ago

This is hard for me to do because 1) I probably respect Musk more than any living engineer, 2) I can't stand the CHSRA and their incompetence, and 3) I'm arguing from my comparatively unsuccessful keyboard against someone who is in every way my superior when it comes to engineering and business, and I know I'm gonna be the one to look like a fool here. But I'm going to do it anyway and try as best as I can to avoid the middlebrow dismissal. Hyperloop is a nerd dream and it doesn't have a chance at financial success. The fundamental problem has nothing to do with the technology, which appears amazing and viable. If anyone can overcome the few nagging engineering issues, Musk and Co are the ones to do it. No, it has to do with not having a viable market plan, suffering from very common delusional assumptions in business models that have fucked over railroad capitalists for well over 2 centuries now, including three major railroad bubbles (Railway Mania as well as the Panics of 1893 and 1873). [1] The faulty assumption is that the viability of the railroad hinges on the ability to go from major city to major city as fast as possible. This is only partially true. Of course you want to be as fast as possible, but the worst possible way to be as fast as possible is to eliminate stops in smaller cities and towns, which is exactly what Hyperloop is planning on doing. Those small towns usually end up being the most prominent drivers of revenue, overshadowing the large-city-to-large-city revenue by an order of magnitude. Even the CHSRA business plan shows that their revenue model does not depend heavily on the SF<->LA passenger volume. You can typically think of demand for travel in terms of cultural dependencies. I have a need for employment, therefore I travel to work. I have a need to visit family, therefore I travel to family. I have a need for tuna, therefore I travel to the wharf market. I have a need for a visa, therefore I travel to the embassy. These cultural dependencies result in a demand distribution for travel that roughly fits a power law profile. The demand for near travel (x > 0) is exponentially greater than further travel (y > x). It is not hard to speculate that the passenger miles travelled by Angelenos traveling to work outweighs the aggregate passenger miles travelled between Los Angeles to San Francisco on any given day...LA County's Metropolitan Transit Authority alone accounts for 5.4M passenger miles a day [2], approximately equivalent to 14,000 passengers traveling between SF and LA. More importantly, the larger the city, the more your cultural needs are met by your own city. If you live in Los Angeles, your probabilistic need to travel to San Francisco is much lower than someone from Fresno, because your needs are mostly met by Los Angeles. When I lived in Stockton, I travelled to Oakland or San Francisco almost on a weekly basis...but now that I live in Seattle, I travel outside of the Puget Sound region maybe 2-3 times per year. In the very beginning, this faulty assumption was actually a safer assumption to make than it is today, due to the lack of airlines and automobiles. The railroad literally was the fastest way to get from city to city, with no exceptions. But now it isn't. Once you go over about 300 miles, a well timed trip by plane is often as fast or faster (a lot of people will say that 500 miles is the threshold of competitiveness, but travel market share peaks and then drops off after about 300 miles). Under 100 miles, the freedom of a car to leave without a schedule often makes cars faster. Any time you have competition, you lower your market share, with your comparative competitiveness determining how much market share you lose. So this is how it has played out hundreds if not thousands of times in the history of railroads: 1) Some big city businessman sees a slow trip to a city that he commonly has to travel to. He sees a demand for faster transportation. He throws together a business plan that makes the correct assumption that City A has X people, City B has Y people, and a fast connection between them will yield Z% market share of the travel D demand between them. He figures that in order to get that fast travel time, he can only stop at the largest cities in between...or possibly no stops at all! He then looks up a similar city or railroad (lets say B & S railroad), looks at ridership figures, and tries to back into D, and then inflates the Z figure to reflect the fact that his railroad will be faster because there are fewer stops. Therefore his revenue model becomes X * 0.5D * Z * P + Y * 0.5D * Z * P (where P == ticket price) 2) He sells some stocks and bonds (or in the case of modern capitalism, lobbies for grants), and builds a railroad. From this article, it looks like this step is starting. 3) After a few months, he realizes his model is inaccurate. At this point, he will do one of two things: either advertise more or remove stops to make it faster, both of which exacerbate the cash flow problem. 4) After about a year, he is bankrupt. The bondholders reclaim as much as they can by selling the railroad to some other capitalist who will with high assurance do exactly the same thing, but with a greater chance of success due to a much lower investment. And thus plays out the railroad consolidation game. In terms of the model, his failure was actually three failures multiplied together. 1) He assumed that the ridership of B & S railroad was primarily between termini. This meant his D figure was too low because he vastly underestimated the demand to and from the small intermediate cities. 2) He assumed that B & S ridership figures were rides at full terminus-to-terminus prices, therefore inflating P. 3) He assumed that D was a linear function of population, ignoring that the larger the city the lower the cultural need for travel, thereby inflating D. The only thing he got right was X and Y. The practical implication of this is that if you want a successful, profit-maximizing railroad, you need to optimize the need for speed with the need to pick up passengers along the way. If you are a capitalist that cares about maximizing profit, this unfortunately means having a railroad that looks like a slow kludge, because it means making unglamourous stops in unglamourous towns. And it also means that technophile idealism puts you at a competitive disadvantage. [1] for more information/history, this is a great writeup, with a couple chapters that clearly describe this delusion. It is very long, but amazingly interesting and worth reading outside of this reference for anyone interested in technocapitalism or bubble economics. http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/hallucinations.pdf http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/hallucinations.pdf) [2] http://www.apta.com/resources/statistics/Documents/FactBook/2013-APTA-Fact-Book.pdf http://www.apta.com/resources/statistics/Documents/FactBook/...

Osmium 11y ago

Regardless of what you think of this specific project, I'm encouraged that people are still 'Thinking Big'. Making the future happen is up to us!

sixQuarks 11y ago

When the US government literally loses track of $100 million in cash, no one blinks an eye. When a guy who has built an electric car company AND a space rocket company proposes a revolutionary transportation alternative and has people excited enough to spend $100 million on it, people go nuts. I can't believe how small-minded some people are.

the_falcon 11y ago
He didn't, this is not elon musks project. Elon musks project is called Hyperloop Technology. This CO is called Hyperloop Transportation Technology backed by a PR Firm called Jumpstarter
the_falcon 11y ago
From the article "Separately, Musk has said he plans to build his own 5-mile test track, likely in Texas, for companies and students to test out potential Hyperloop designs."

wehadfun 11y ago

The article makes it sound like a flea could come in there and kill everyone.

aetherson 11y ago

The biggest problem with this headline is that it suggests that the hyperloop is "getting" a test track. When the actual situation appears to be that the hyperloop is getting a plan for a test track that is heavily contingent on highly speculative funding. If it actually had a test track, then most of the discussion in these comments could be obviated.

the_falcon 11y ago
Exactly, this was a PR Release for a hyperloop cash grab in hopes they IPO

sixQuarks 11y ago

coderjames 11y ago

I'm clearly missing something important because otherwise somebody would have built this already, but instead of using the fans for levitation as proposed, why not keep using the magnets? I'm imagining a tube with (8?) magnets equally-spaced around the perimeter so that the carriage inside automatically stays centered in the tube. We already know how to toggle the magnets to produce forward motion (see maglev trains). Could still use the partial-vacuum to keep drag down. And you remove the single-point failure mechanisms of the fans on the carriage and minor misalignment of tube segments.

throwaway41597 11y ago
I think it's because you'd need a continuous line of magnets over the full tube, as opposed to accelerators at intervals so it's probably orders of magnitudes cheaper. I don't know about the reliability of compressors but I'd say you could have a couple onboard if they're an issue.

the_falcon 11y ago

The wording of this article is interesting. I personally know the people behind this project. This is from a PR firm, and kickstarter knockoff who 'lost' a lot of my friends startups money This company (Hyperloop Transportation Technologies) got no funding, Hyperloop Technologies did ($8.5m).(which is in reality a PR firm called jumpstarter pr in El Segundo) They are hoping to raise the funding at IPO "Now, the company Hyperloop Transportation Technologies Inc. (which is not affiliated with Musk or Tesla) has inked a deal with landowners in central California to build the world's first Hyperloop test track" "The 5-mile test track is estimated to cost about $100 million, which Hyperloop Transportation Technologies hopes to pay for with its initial public offering (IPO) later this year, according to Navigant's blog." Musk is building his own Separately, Musk has said he plans to build his own 5-mile test track, likely in Texas, for companies and students to test out potential Hyperloop designs.

Animats 11y ago

They have a web site.[1] They claim to be hiring. They claim to have funding. The web site looks like someone loaded up the generic cool new startup template and stuck in some concept art in the indicated places. There's no useful information about the technology or the business. The big problem with this is not the technology. It's land acquisition. As with high speed rail, you need a right of way that's straight or has very large radius turns. There are sections of I-5 that are straight enough, but high-speed travel between Bakersfield and Tracy isn't that useful. Tunnels can help, but are not cheap. China is building high speed rail through urban areas on pylons. As with most elevated rail, the reality is much wider and more heavily built than the concept art. (China's maglev is a one-off demo; China's high speed rail system is huge.) [1] http://hyperlooptech.com/ http://hyperlooptech.com/

Igglyboo 11y ago
Their logo looks extremely similar to the Visual Studio 2010 logo. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1LB4PjiDdgU/Ur_tPvwj5HI/AAAAAAAAAo0/91HKtveyFok/s1600/VisualStudio2010.png http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1LB4PjiDdgU/Ur_tPvwj5HI/AAAAAAAAAo...
- sevenadrian 11y ago
  Ha, I knew I recognized it. Thanks for proving I'm not crazy, at least because of this.
- swalsh 11y ago
  I think they need to change either the colors or the symbol... but having both is throwing me off :D
danielweber 11y ago
The Hyperloop paper (as originally proposed) was going to use pylons to ease land acquisition costs. How much this helps is unclear to me.
melling 11y ago
China is now building a low-speed maglev that should be operational later this year. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_S1,_BCR http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_S1,_BCR China opened 32 new high-speed rail routes in one day last December. http://qz.com/308791/china-flexes-its-high-speed-rail-muscles-by-rolling-out-32-new-routes-in-one-day http://qz.com/308791/china-flexes-its-high-speed-rail-muscle... By the time the hyperloop connects the 400 miles between SF and LA, China will have 30,000-40,000 miles of high-speed rail.

joelrunyon 11y ago

Why would they build this in California? Why not pick a place in pretty much ANY other place in the US that has demonstrably cheaper land.

devindotcom 11y ago
I was thinking it makes sense in that California, sort of following I-5, is where the Hyperloop would supposedly go... but no. There's no reason to construct a proof of concept track there. Go buy some flats in the middle of nowhere and get a working prototype going first.
- Gibbon1 11y ago
  Makes sense if you're Musk and want to jot down to Santa Monica to see your mistress Friday evening. (Come on seriously this is what this is all about, you know it, I know it) Not so good if you want to commute to your worker bee cubical job Monday morning.
djcapelis 11y ago
They will presumably be building this out in the middle of nowhere in CA, not in a downtown urban core. But it is helpful to be in driving distance to a metropolis with a high degree of excellent engineering talent. People from out of state assume everything in CA is nuts expensive but you have to remember the state is also full of farmland, forests and deserts.

joshdance 11y ago

In the article they quote someone as saying if you lose the vacuum everyone crashes? That seems to be exactly opposite what I read in other articles. Is that true?

trhway 11y ago

if we're going to build a 5 mile evacuated pipe while not try to use it as a prototype of a space launch? At modest 50G acceleration the exit speed would be 2.5km/s - not a production, but it would be a good test prototype to get real funding for the real deal to the top of Kilimanjaro.

pas 11y ago
Because you'd still hit dense air at the top with 2.5km/s. You would need to go a about as high as the blackbird could fly to exit the tube with some sort of grace. (Or maybe even higher.) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9d/Comparison_US_standard_atmosphere_1962.svg/2000px-Comparison_US_standard_atmosphere_1962.svg.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9d/Com...