Startup firm Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) – among those vying to be the first builder of futuristic transportation that moves people and cargo in pressurized capsules at more than 700 miles an hour – has claimed licensing safer, cheaper technology than what conventional high-speed trains use.
The said technology is based on passive magnetic levitation originally proposed by Richard Post and his team at Lawrence Livermore National Labs, with whom the startup has worked over the last year.
HTT made the announcement on May 9 in Nevada by its rival company, the similarly named Hyperloop Technologies (HT).
Its Chief Operating Officer Bibop Gresta said that the passive magnetic levitation system would remove the need to plant power stations along the Hyperloop track. MagLev technology allows, for instance, the high-speed Transrapid train in Shanghai to have a top speed of up to 270 mph.
Dubbed Inductrack, the new technology promises to be better than MagLev, which is currently employed in high-speed trains in China and Germany.
Safety emerges as a primary sell-on. Since levitation purely takes place via movement, any power failure would not hinder Hyperloop pods, which would touch the ground only after achieving minimal speeds, explained Gresta.
The innovation remains theoretical in different respects, even though parts of the underlying machinery has already undergone testing. Hyperloop should be built and tested first to truly validate the safety and affordability claims, according to experts.
Back in 2013, SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk first floated the idea of a Hyperloop, challenging other makers to pursue and build the concept. SpaceX is now even putting up a track to test entries in its pod design competition.
It’s a tight race between HTT and HT today: the former building a 5-mile test track in California and sealing a deal with Slovakia for a potential Hyperloop system, and the latter getting $9.2-million tax incentives to open a North Las Vegas testing facility.
May 10 marked an HT demonstration and some pretty huge announcements, based on teaser tweets from its co-founder Shervin Pishevar.
“[E]xpect demonstrations of full-scale components of the Hyperloop Systems that you can expect from the full-scale system,” HT CEO Rob Lloyd told Inverse.
HT has so far built plenty of testing equipment, from axial compressor blades and a levitation rig to a 50-foot-long, 12-foot diameter tube for testing all types of hardware. Once its full-scale Hyperloop is done, Lloyd said the firm will roll out the first three out of four production systems in 2017 or 2018.
As Hyperloop is still in its early stage, the bold announcements and press releases are deemed a tasty appetizer for those eagerly awaiting the ride of the future.
