HTT in talks with 5 states for high-speed travel network

Us-based Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) is in talks with five Indian states to build a highspeed travel network and will also raise $100 million to invest in the country.

It is in talks with a corporate house for a local partnership and also an academic institution, its chairman Bibop Gresta has said.

“We have five offers on the table from five chief ministers. We spoke to them and the one that will give us the land we will go and build. We have local partners and we are now raising USD 100 million and bringing another investment from abroad,” Gresta said.

The money will be raised exclusively for India play and from both international and domestic investors, he said.

Once the land and other permissions for the “fifth mode of transportation”, which is based on a futuristic idea presented by entrepreneur Elon Musk in 2013, are in place, HTT can host a passenger in 36-38 months, he said. The idea entails putting goods and people in capsules which will travel in specially-made vacuum tunnels built above the ground. Magnetic levitation and zero resistance will ensure the capsules travel at very high speeds of over 1,000 kmph. It has not yet been deployed anywhere yet. Asserting that HTT has been in touch with Indian officials for long and has also hosted Union Minister Nitin Gadkari at its US offices, Gresta expressed dismay for the “confusion” created by rival ‘Hyperloop One’.

In its efforts to develop in the lucrative Indian market, the rival is reportedly hosting a seminar in the national capital next week.

“They (officials) are talking only with us, until now. Their (HO) company is doing an event on 27th. They are confusing a little bit. That confuses the brand Hyperloop. The funny thing is that they convinced the rail minister to go there,” he said.

After presenting the idea, which entails passengers or goods being transported inside capsules put inside vacuum created in special tunnels above the ground at speeds of over 1,000 kmph, Musk asked the industry to work on it.