In a hurry? This tech contest could help
Start-ups look to move people, things at super-fast rates
Rob Lloyd WASHINGTON would like to get you from Los Angeles to San Diego in 12.5 minutes — without getting in a car or a plane. Or how about Denver to Dallas in 73 minutes? Or Pittsburgh to Columbus in 18 minutes?
Hyperloop One, the Los Angeles-based start-up that Lloyd runs, on Thursday named 11 U.S. semifinalists to compete for the chance to build the innovative transportation system first envisioned in a 2013 white paper written by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.
One of a number of companies pursuing the commercialization of this ambitious and largely untested technology, Hyperloop One will consider the U.S. proposals along with 24 others from around the world. In early 2018, Hyperloop One will help three winners get financing and build their systems.
The winning group would also determine where the world would see the first commercial hyperloop — whether it’s Miami to Orlando or Reno to Las Vegas. The teams are typically made up of government, former government and industry officials.
“We don’t know which one of those wasn’t a great idea,” Lloyd said. “These are all good projects.”
Hyperloop One’s plan is to transport people and cargo suspended in pods by magnetic levitation inside vacuum-sealed tubes, and to travel at nearly the speed the sound across long distances. Think of an old pneumatic tube for bank deposits, except for people.
Other start-ups pursuing the venture include Hyperloop Transportation Technologies
and TransPod, as well as dozens of amateur and university-based teams that recently competed at the SpaceX-sponsored Hyperloop Pod Competition.
Hyperloop proponents argue that the futuristic form of movement will not only give passengers back time, but also provide companies with cheaper and faster ways to shuttle their goods between destinations. Critics counter that while magnetic levitation technology certainly has proven itself on some of the fastest trains in Europe and Asia, U.S. voters and lawmakers have shown little appetite for supporting high-speed rail of any sort.
Hyperloop One was among the first companies to commit itself to seeing if the technology could be commercialized. Founded in 2014 by early Uber investor Shervin Pishevar and ex-SpaceX engineer Brogan BamBrogan, the company tested its propulsion system with great fanfare last spring when it sent a sled down tracks for 100 yards at a test facility an hour outside of Las Vegas.
Pishevar and BamBrogan quickly announced that Hyperloop One would begin building a long, connected track that would host a true test of hyperloop tech by the end of 2016.
But a strange series of events got in the way of that deadline. The company’s chief technology officer BamBrogan abruptly quit and sued Hyperloop One last July, alleging that he was harassed by officials. Hyperloop One countered the BamBrogan was making off with company secrets as well as planning to poach talent for his own venture.
In November, the warring parties settled the suit. In January, BamBrogan announced he and his former Hyperloop One colleagues were launching Arrivo.
“We don’t think about (the lawsuit) at all,” said. “We are moving from strength to strength, and we’re building this.”
Pishevar, Hyperloop One’s executive chairman, said Thursday his company is focused on the next step: testing on a longer track. “I think that is a critical milestone,” he said. “It’s just the next generation of high-speed rail, except cheaper and faster.”
The idea is not for Hyperloop One to get into the transportation construction game.
Rather, the company hopes to nail the essentials of the pod and tube’s technology to be able to license that intellectual property to help others build out hyperloop networks.
“It’s going to be a competition to see which government in the world wants to be the first to bring hyperloop to their citizens and their country,” Pishevar said. “There is obviously a lot of interest around the world.”