When Elon Musk, of Tesla and SpaceX, announced the Hyperloop high speed train in 2013, it seemed almost too sci-fi to be possible. Well, with the announcement of the first official Hyperloop commercial contract this past week, Musk's sci-fi vision may become a physical reality.
The project will consist of approximately 8 kilometers of track and will serve as a step toward possible larger-scale implementation in the future. Hyperloop Transportation Technologies of California and the Quay Valley development announced the commercial contract last week.
Quay Valley, a community development by Grow Holdings, "will be a 100 percent solar powered, self-sustaining residential community that will incorporate retail, education, entertainment and hospitality infrastructure, generate thousands of jobs and strengthen the Central Valley’s economy – all while protecting the natural resources and beauty of the land," according to the development's webpage.
Construction on Hyperloop won't begin until 2016 at the earliest and speeds will be much slower than the larger scale model originally proposed by Musk. It will probably reach speeds of 320 km per hour, which is still really fast. If built on a larger scale, the Hyperloop would allegedly be able to reach speeds over 1,200 km per hour.
This smaller scale version will be utilized either as public transportation in the Quay Valley community or possibly even as an amusement park ride for tourists. A lot of details need to be figured out before the project can move forward, such as how to unload the 28 passengers from the capsule every 30 seconds without delays or how to keep the tube in a near-vacuum state.
Tickets will be sold for the Hyperloop to recoup the initial investment, according to HTT CEO Dirk Ahlborn.
“Our agreement with Quay Valley is a major milestone in the advancement of the Hyperloop project,” said Ahlborn, in a statement to Forbes. “This installation will allow us to demonstrate all systems on a full scale and immediately begin generating revenue for our shareholders through actual operations.”
Essentially the Hyperloop train will shoot passenger capsules at high speeds through a nearly complete vacuum inside a large-scale tube. If ever implemented on a large scale, the technology could drastically decrease required transport time, allowing cities to become more like metro stops than distant destinations.
Currently, three different competitors are vying to develop the technology that Musk published a 57-page alpha white paper on last year. HTT has garnered the first commercial contract, but Hyperloop Technologies, also based in California, is backed by a group of investors from Silicon Valley. Musk himself plans to fund the construction of another small Hyperloop in Texas.
In the meantime, we are wondering when someone will develop the Hyperloop from Beirut to Dubai? It would make our lives at StepFeed a lot more convenient.