First airlines, then spaceships. Now the Virgin boss wants to build Hyperloop One – a high-speed, pneumatic maglev railway. But engineering experts doubt that it will ever leave the station
Last week, Richard Branson gave a boost to tech tycoon Elon Musk’s vision of a futuristic transport system. Hyperloop One is the frontrunner among several companies working on plans for magnetically propelled ground shuttles capable of keeping pace with commercial airliners. Branson announced an investment of an undisclosed sum in the company, which took its total funding to £186m.
Musk first outlined his plans, entitled Hyperloop Alpha, in 2013, when he said the system could provide a safer, faster and more convenient mode of long-distance transport than cars and trains, while also being low cost, sustainable, immune to adverse weather and earthquake-resistant.
He went on to describe a system of tubes elevated on columns running the 381 miles between Los Angeles and San Francisco, with journey times cut from a driving time of six hours and 30 minutes to 35 minutes. In Silicon Valley style, he “open-sourced” the project, inviting others to take up its development.
Earlier this year, at Hyperloop One’s test site in Nevada, they carried out a trial using a full-size pod that reached 190mph, although the company is aiming for top speeds of 600mph-plus for the passenger vehicle.
Meanwhile, Musk, who is not directly involved with Hyperloop One, has taken his vision underground. In July, he claimed his separate venture The Boring Company had secured verbal agreement from the US government to build an underground loop from New York to Washington DC. The White House described the exchange only as a “promising conversation”.
As founder of the internet payment system PayPal, electric carmaker Tesla and rocket builder SpaceX, Musk has earned the right to be taken seriously. However, Branson’s financial involvement has failed to quieten the critics who argue none of the players in the hyperloop field has taken proper account of the size of the enormous hurdles facing anyone seeking to make the technology a reality.