A VIEW OF THE FUTURE
Revolutionary hyperloop transportation undergoes testing in Nevada’s Mojave Desert
APEX,Nev. — The most striking aspect of the testing facility for the potentially revolutionary, multibillion-dollar Virgin Hyperloop One in the Mojave Desert is that it is made up of a series of Big Top Fabric Structures, a super-size version of a backyard party tent.
But the 40-acre site 29 miles outside of Las Vegas has everything engineers need to test the highspeed pod that runs inside a lowpressure tube: a 500-meter test track, which is about 1,600 feet; a mission control area about the size of a two-car garage, with 20 computer monitors and two large display screens; temperatures that can range from 10 to 127 degrees, sometimes with monsoon-type wind and rain; and several dozen tube sections about 11 feet in diameter, about 50 feet long and weighing about 58,000 pounds strewn about the site for crews to experiment with.
A break room with two large refrigeration coolers to store beverages — hydration is a big deal in the desert — a solar-powered guard station and a picturesque mountain backdrop round out the site where Hyperloop’s engineers say transportation history is being made. It’s the type of history that in the middle of the next decade could have Pittsburghers traveling to Chicago in as little as 48 minutes almost whenever they want.
After more than 200 test runs in the past year, engineers say they have no doubt the technology works the way it is supposed to. In fact, during a tour Friday, Pittsburgh native and head engineer Rob Ferber said crews primarily are working on ancillary details such as which kind of paint will work best on the exterior of the tubes in various climate conditions and developing maintenance robots to do routine repairs.
“It’s not testing if the physics is going to work. The system already works,” Mr. Ferber said. “But we’re building a whole transportation system. This is testing everything else that goes with it.”
The media tour was part of a site visit that Virgin Hyperloop arranged for officials from the MidWest Ohio Regional Planning Commission, which is pushing to have the first operational hyperloop system in the U.S. on a 488mile corridor linking Pittsburgh to Chicago via Columbus. The so--
called Mid-West Connect proposal was one of 10 that Virgin Hyperloop approved to move ahead after a worldwide competition last year.
Virgin Hyperloop, which has 200 employees based in Los Angeles, is pursuing a concept first envisioned by billionaire Elon Musk about five years ago to move people and cargo at speeds approaching 700 mph through vacuum tubes suspended on a bed of magnetic levitation. Mr. Musk is not an investor or otherwise directly involved in the project, but Mr. Ferber and other top officials all previously worked for his other companies such as Tesla and Space-X.
Technology perfected
Mr. Ferber said hyperloop’s “Kitty Hawk moment” came last May, when the first pod zoomed down the test track. Before that, everything had been theoretical.
“The moment you go from ‘ we will’ to ‘ we have done it,’ the world changes,” Mr. Ferber said. “We started out with, ‘I think this should work.’ Our models have born out that this works.
“We’ve done it. All systems have been operating flawlessly.”
The key to the entire operation, Mr. Ferber said, is eliminating friction, most of which comes from air. Eliminate the air, and the friction goes with it. He compared it to a jet plane, which he said uses most of its energy forcing its way through the lower atmosphere until it reaches a height with little air pressure.
“When you are moving people or anything else, you are assuming friction,” he said. “[With the low-pressure tube] we’re not having to spend all of that energy getting the air out of the way. We have now won the friction equation.”
One major benefit of this type of system, he said, is that it is not a huge electricity drain. A Tesla car uses about 160 watts of power per passenger mile; hyperloop will use less than 100 watts.
On the test track, the hyperloop has reached a top speed of about 240 mph. It can’t go much faster there because of the short distance, but it’s enough to know the technology works, Mr. Ferber said.
Initially, hyperloop officials said the system would have no trouble reaching more than 700 mph. But Mr. Ferber said that would be in perfectly flat, straight configurations with no hills, valleys or curves.
In practical operation, the system likely will run about 500 mph, increasing the initial expected time from Pittsburgh to Chicago from 29 minutes to 48 minutes — still way below air travel.
The test-model pod is about the length of a small tractor-trailer with an aerodynamic front covered with the same carbon fiber used on the nose of jet airplanes. This one is a cargo model, but one for passengers would use the same technology, and the size can vary based on the needs in a particular corridor. The passenger pod would hold eight to 50 people.
So far, the only passenger on the system has been Thor, a stuffed animal that belongs to the child of one of the engineers. There’s no need to test it with humans, Mr. Ferber said, for safety reasons and because “it’s irrelevant.”
“Nothing interesting happens when you put people in it,” he said. “By the time you put people in it, all the safety features have to be worked out. Nothing different happens to people.
“The moment you put people in there, it becomes a human life support system. That takes time. We expect it to take two years before we’re ready to put people in it.”
In fact, Mr. Ferber scoffed at Uber’s notion that it has to test its self-driving vehicles with passengers in them to help perfect the technology.
“That’s just B.S. That’s a bald-faced lie,” he said in a three-minute rant. “They just don’t want to pay for the testing. Uber has done more damage to the development of the autonomous vehicle than anything else with that approach.”
Mr. Ferber said safety is at the forefront for Richard Branson, the billionaire owner of Virgin who invested in Hyperloop One last year.
“This is going to be at least as safe as everything else out there, if not safer.”
The rider’s experience in a hyperloop pod will be similar to riding in an airplane except quieter and smoother, Mr. Ferber said. Engineers know this from watching video taken by cameras inside the pod during test runs.
“It has to run really, really well and really, really reliably, and it will,” Mr. Ferber said. “Your coffee won’t slosh. Your coffee won’t spill.”
Custom service
Another attraction of hyperloop will be individualized service, both for the corridor installing the system and the rider using it.
Mr. Ferber said the job of Hyperloop’s engineers is to develop the technology, then adapt it to the needs of each area. That’s why the variety of weather conditions in Apex are ideal for testing — hot and dry like parts of the Middle East, wet and humid like parts of India and freezing cold like the Midwest U.S. in the winter. The engineers “don’t care” doesn’t want cargo Mr. whether matter to Ferber or move whether local a combination, said. passengers, operators they It want or every stations 200 miles. every 2 miles Those are “business side” questions for the corridor operator to decide and engineers to deliver. “We can talk to the people who will operate the system — talk to them and ask what they need, the best information available,” he said. “We just need to make sure we can accommodate all of these conditions and requests.” The system will run on parallel routes in both directions, sometimes in separate tubes, others in the same tubes. Mr. Ferber said he expects many systems will try to follow existing rights of way such as railroads, trails, tunnels and mining operations to hold down costs.
The system will require sites for vacuum pumps every 10 to 100 miles, but the pumps only will be used a few hours at a time when needed. The tubes lose a bit of pressure each time the doors are opened for passengers or cargo.
Each ride will be on-demand, non-stop service from station to station, sometimes with others making the same trip, others a solo trip. For example, one rider in Pittsburgh could schedule a pod to Columbus while another schedules one for Marysville, Ohio, and a third travels to Chicago. Another might go from Lima, Ohio, to Marysville.
Fares will be determined by each corridor, but the cost should be substantially lower than air fare and at least competitive with existing rail service but substantially faster.
That’s the other key along with technology — convincing banks the corridors can at least cover costs so they provide the billions in capital to build systems. It’s what Mr. Ferber calls “bankability.”
“You won’t get it built without the second one. They’re going to want some comfort in the system.”
Right now, Mr. Ferber said he expects the first operating hyperloop to open about the middle of the next decade, likely in India or Dubai and perhaps with a concentration on cargo. On April 30, Virgin Hyperloop announced a joint venture with Dubai port operator DP World to develop a corridor there called DP World Cargospeed and in February signed a contract to develop a 10-kilometer corridor between Mumbai and Pune, India.
Whichever system moves ahead first — Mr. Ferber said Pittsburgh to Chicago isn’t out of the question due to the high level of planning already started — will be the first extended distance that will have to win governmental approval. That’s when hyperloop will have to convince regulators the system can operate safely and reliably.
Midwest connect
A four-member team from the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission toured the test facility Friday, then Terri Flora, the agency’s director of public and government affairs, stayed for the media tour. Although it was a static site tour with no demonstration and little work going on, Ms. Flora said she came away impressed.
“It’s the people working on this,” she said. “The knowledge they have amazes me and gives me that confidence that they know what they are doing.”
She said she also likes the Virgin Hyperloop approach of offering the technology and letting local jurisdictions design the system to use it.
“They want us to come to them and tell them what we want, and they will build it,” she said.
The commission is working with communities, universities and organizations throughout the corridor, including the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, to develop the details of the corridor and identify participants for a public-private partnership to fund the project. The Mid-Ohio Commission used a similar approach to help Columbus win the $50 million Smart Cities Challenge from the federal Department of Transportation two years ago.
The corridor is especially attractive for moving cargo. In 2015, the corridor moved 5.9 million tons of goods and that is expected to grow to 9 million tons by 2040 without hyperloop.
The commission expects to pick a consultant in the next few months to oversee dual studies known as the Rapid-Speed Transportation Initiative, one an environmental impact study and the other a feasibility study that is an extension of an ongoing study of rail passenger service between Columbus and Chicago. The studies jointly will cost about $2.5 million and should be completed by mid-2019.
“We think it’s feasible and we believe it will be cheaper than high-speed rail. But we have to dot our I’s and cross our T’s to find those things out,” she said. “Hyperloop is being done. We want to be the first in the U.S. to do it.”