13yo Invents a Better Hyperloop - It's still a STUPID IDEA

[vk6zgo]

It's just basic pie-in-the-sky startup idea hype marketing, common as mud.
Even the Batteries 800% wasn't fraud because I'm sure you could find one crappy device it gave an 800% increase with.

Not to mention all those abdominal exercise gadgets on TV, etc.

Most of those gadgets work, but using them is boring as bat faeces, & they spend most their time sitting in "the spare room" unused!

[nctnico]

Besides, one could look at all this Hyperloop hype as an example of brainstorming - one that has escaped the room rather dramatically - but it may give rise to other crazy, impractical ideas that might lead to something truly revolutionary.

I agree. Musk's hyperloop contest was nothing more than a brainstorming session. Run some numbers on an idea independently. The decission made by some companies to go ahead and develop it for real doesn't even come from Musk. The only thing is that hyperloop will be stuck to Musk forever which -from a 'person as a brand' marketing perspective- is pretty clever given the little amount of money and time he invested into it.

[Fungus]

When I look at our Hyperloop team I see a bunch of students (maybe 100) all doing real stuff. There's a marketing department, there's a bunch of them messing around with magnets and microcontrollers, there's a bunch of them making hyperloop sleds out of carbon fiber, others doing CAD/CAM ... we all mucked in one day to pour concrete for the supports for the testing tube, etc., etc.

They also got to travel to the USA and take selfies at SpaceX during the competitions.

(we placed in the top three a few times)

Will Hyperloop ever work as envisioned? Probably not, but a whole lot of people got to design and build a lot of real, working hardware. Some of them also learned to go out visiting companies trying to blag construction materials, engines, electronics, money, etc.

It's all good as far as I'm concerned, and a long, long way from things like Batteroo, uBeam, Solar Roadways....

[RandallMcRee]

Exactly, some of these wild ideas are actually good....

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2018/11/29/this-23-year-old-robotics-prodigy-has-47m-to-build-a-fleet-of-autonomous-trucks/#1df2b4f97c89

View any science fair competition and you will see quite a high level of accomplishment, much of it, perhaps, due to help from their mentors. Is that wrong?

[Connecteur]

Exactly, some of these wild ideas are actually good....

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2018/11/29/this-23-year-old-robotics-prodigy-has-47m-to-build-a-fleet-of-autonomous-trucks/#1df2b4f97c89

View any science fair competition and you will see quite a high level of accomplishment, much of it, perhaps, due to help from their mentors. Is that wrong?

Nothing wrong with it at all, but most successful endeavors are 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.

I've seen thousands of inspired ideas since I started reading Popular Science and other technology news since I was about 13, a lot of years ago, and I've seen maybe one in a thousand inspired ideas come to fruition.

It seems to be because most people have trouble with the "99% perspiration" part.
It's not lack of money that stopped the great inventors of the past.

[EEVblog]

When I look at our Hyperloop team I see a bunch of students (maybe 100) all doing real stuff. There's a marketing department, there's a bunch of them messing around with magnets and microcontrollers, there's a bunch of them making hyperloop sleds out of carbon fiber, others doing CAD/CAM ... we all mucked in one day to pour concrete for the supports for the testing tube, etc., etc.
They also got to travel to the USA and take selfies at SpaceX during the competitions.
(we placed in the top three a few times)
Will Hyperloop ever work as envisioned? Probably not, but a whole lot of people got to design and build a lot of real, working hardware. Some of them also learned to go out visiting companies trying to blag construction materials, engines, electronics, money, etc.

That's all well and good, but did even one of those students question the whole idea?
If they did and continued to milk the cash cow, is that a good thing?
Do they know or care where that money came from?, and possibly if some investors are unknowingly being duped out of their money?

[Fungus]

That's all well and good, but did even one of those students question the whole idea?
If they did and continued to milk the cash cow, is that a good thing?
Do they know or care where that money came from?, and possibly if some investors are unknowingly being duped out of their money?

All very good questions...

My answer would be: Everything done so far has been much more focused on completing each year's challenge competition than the overall picture. The overall feeling around the place is more like a a team building something for "Robot Wars" than anything else. Nobody's questioning whether those robots will take over the world, they're just trying to get one working and beat the other teams.

As for sponsorship: Sponsors of sports teams don't get much in return for their sponsorship money. They get their logos on the player's shirts, they get free tickets for the games, etc., but that's about it. Are they being duped or ripped off in any way? No, they do it voluntarily and they have no expectation of ROI beyond getting their company logos on TV.

I'd say our investors are at the same level. They get their logos on the side of the sled, their logos are shown on the screen at every presentation, they get to go around telling their friends they're involved in Hyperloop, etc. They're benefiting in exactly the same way as sponsors of sports teams.

Where's it all headed? Will it implode? I dunno. I haven't been involved this year because it sucks up a lot of time and I don't get paid, so... 

[nctnico]

So the investors didn't got duped out of their money....

[Altair8800]

Fun Fact.  From my "simple" calcs (going from 2011 to 2020 estimated) and using simple linear regression...  In China they build about 2416.7 km of high-speed track a year. 

So in the 6 days since this thread has started they have built about 39.727 km (24.685 miles) of new high speed rail track.



Source:  https://www.forbes.com/sites/salvatorebabones/2018/02/13/chinas-high-speed-trains-are-taking-on-more-passengers-in-chinese-new-year-massive-migration/

And used Excels linear regression...  2416.7 [km/yr] * 1 [yr/360 day] * 6 [days] = 39.72657534 [km]

[Fungus]

So the investors didn't got duped out of their money....

AFAIK I don't think any of them were under any illusions that they were buying shares in some future business that would make them rich. They were mostly just getting their logos on the sled (more money=bigger logo) and some promo photos for their offices (boss standing next to the latest sled with the logo showing).

I also know that some of the students went on to work for those companies after their final year was up so maybe the companies have ulterior motives, too.

[Connecteur]

Fun Fact.  From my "simple" calcs (going from 2011 to 2020 estimated) and using simple linear regression...  In China they build about 2416.7 km of high-speed track a year. 

So in the 6 days since this thread has started they have built about 39.727 km (24.685 miles) of new high speed rail track.

Source:  https://www.forbes.com/sites/salvatorebabones/2018/02/13/chinas-high-speed-trains-are-taking-on-more-passengers-in-chinese-new-year-massive-migration/

What does that have to do with Hyperloop?

[Connecteur]

So the investors didn't got duped out of their money....

It's a scam that's as old as the hills.  My neighbor got a small inheritance and attended an "investment fair" where he gave his money to a company claiming that the next big thing would be "internet kiosks" where people would go to pay for using the internet.  Eight months later they got a tiny dividend and a letter assuring them that everything was "right on track."  After a year the company had claimed that it went bankrupt and all the investment money was gone. 

Perfectly legal, but obviously a scam designed to "separate the fool from his gold."

[Altair8800]

Fun Fact.  From my "simple" calcs (going from 2011 to 2020 estimated) and using simple linear regression...  In China they build about 2416.7 km of high-speed track a year. 

So in the 6 days since this thread has started they have built about 39.727 km (24.685 miles) of new high speed rail track.

Source:  https://www.forbes.com/sites/salvatorebabones/2018/02/13/chinas-high-speed-trains-are-taking-on-more-passengers-in-chinese-new-year-massive-migration/

What does that have to do with Hyperloop?

What got me thinking about it was Dave mentioning the Maglev in Shanghai.  That was a one-off project and is only 30.5 km (19 mi) and is completed in 7-8 minutes.  I was a bit curious if Dave ever got a chance to ride one of China's regular high-speed trains? 

After watching thunderf00t's videos it made no sense to do hyperloop:
1:  Take incredible amount of energy to get near perfect vacuum in such a large cylinder (100's km long) if even possible.
2:  A catastrophic collapse, by nature, by poor design, by poor construction, or even man-made could cause immediate vacuum collapse.
4:  If there was an accident, going 650 - 1000 km/h (~400-600 mph), most of the occupants would be casualties.  How would you rescue them (have to decompression first).  Remember the fire that happened on the Chunnel.  At least they have a middle service/rescue tunnel and at 100 000 Pa (~1 Atmosphere).
5:  If there was even one accident in which multiple casualties, then the hyper-loop system might be abandoned.  Remember what happened to the Concord.
6:  How are you going to have expansion gaps in a vacuum tube?  Steel when heated, causes tremendous pressures.  You have 11um (11 micron meters) of expansion for every meter per degree C.  So let say when they constructed the HYPE-erloop at 20 C (~70 deg F and it went to 38C (~100 deg F) and you have 10km (~6mi) of tubing.  You would have 11 µm/(m °C) * 10000(m) * 18(°C) = 1.98m (about 6.5 ft) of expansion that needs to be taken into consideration every 10km.  This is why bridges and train tracks have gaps.  Gaps are much harder to do when you have to maintain near perfect vacuum.  If the temperature goes down then you have to take into effect thermodynamic contraction also.  The pressures created by this expansion (if steel is constrained) would be enormous (think Hydraulic Press Channel stuff).
7:  This is untested tech at this scale.  So chances are the 1.5x, 2.0x, 2.5x or even 3.0x than their estimated costs and there is always the possibility of it not being possible in the end (think of like a large military weapon system that got axed xx% of the way through the project). In the end would it be economically feasible compare to air travel (can it really compete).

So I kind of agree with Dave and Thunderf00t on this, this just seems like such a boondoggle so why don't you just go regular high-speed rail. 

Catrostrophic collapse of vacuum
https://youtu.be/Z48pSwiDLIM?t=564

Example of Thermodynamic bending of railroad tracks (likely did not have enough track gap length to account for expansion)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/Rail_buckle.jpg

[EEVblog]

What got me thinking about it was Dave mentioning the Maglev in Shanghai.  That was a one-off project and is only 30.5 km (19 mi) and is completed in 7-8 minutes.  I was a bit curious if Dave ever got a chance to ride one of China's regular high-speed trains? 

No I haven't.
But I wasn't implying that MagLev is better than high speed rail, just that MagLev exists and it does work on a consumer transport level. And MagLev is faster than commercial high speed rail.
Hyperloop is just MagLev in a reduced pressure tube.

5:  If there was even one accident in which multiple casualties, then the hyper-loop system might be abandoned.  Remember what happened to the Concord.

Yep. If it ever gets far, the concept will not survive a mass accident.

So I kind of agree with Dave and Thunderf00t on this, this just seems like such a boondoggle so why don't you just go regular high-speed rail. 

Because it's not sexy and is hard (imossible?) to sell to institutional investors.

[Connecteur]

The atmospheric railways that were built in the early 19th century and were a colossos failure, was superficially similar to some of the possible hyperloop variants, but they were quite different from what's being proposed nowadays. 

The first large-scale test project was a stretch of railway built in a round stonework enclosure like a tunnel, within which an unpowered train ran on conventional railway tracks.  The lead car, which substituted for the engine was intended to have an airtight fit in the round tunnel using some sort of gasket as a seal.  The power to move the train was to come from a vacuum created in the tunnel by a massive pumping station which was supposed to create the vacuum in the tunnel ahead of the train to draw it forward.  The idea was abandoned early in testing for a variety of reasons, but mainly due to the preposterous cost of fuel required to power the steam engines in the vacuum pumping station.

A later variant was tried, without the tunnel, on a conventional track with a vacuum tube similar to a pipeline laid parallel to and between the rails.  The train was connected to a piston within the tube through a slot along its length which was covered by a flap, which was intended to prevent air leaking in and destroying the vacuum.  It was also abandoned when it became obvious that it was far more efficient to put the steam engine on the train, instead of in a vacuum pumping station along the track.  It was also noted that rats kept eating the flap-seal because the only suitable materials for it in those days was leather and tallow.

A more modern concept I had been following for years before Hyperloop was even a thing, was a train in a tunnel, but not driven by air pressure at all.  The air would be kept permanently evacuated in the tunnel, to eliminate air resistance, allowing much higher speeds.  The drag from wheels would be eliminated by using maglev technology to keep the train elevated above the track.  Maglev has evolved and become more cost-effective since the concept was first proposed because it's no longer necessary to use superconducting magnets for magnetic levitation.  The train would be propelled by an electromagnetic peristaltic engine which would accelerate the train to incredible speeds (estimates vary but I have heard beyond supersonic) and nearly all the energy used for acceleration would be reclaimed back using regenerative braking near the destination, making the train, once built, much more efficient than any other form of high speed travel.

[nctnico]

So the investors didn't got duped out of their money....

It's a scam that's as old as the hills.  My neighbor got a small inheritance and attended an "investment fair" ......

That is your opinion but it is not backed by the facts. For starters there are multiple companies working on various hyperloop versions being backed by large companies. These companies have experience with investing their money and do their due diligence (they have engineers to asses projects) before making an investment. Your comparison with your neighbour's investment just doesn't apply. Different world.

However your neighbour should have been wiser and done more investigation. If a company needs some kind of kickstarter it means the professional investors already passed on the opportunity. That is a big red flag right there. There are investment firms specialising in investing in startups. These firms have their own experts to asses new companies where it comes to viability and risk. It makes more sense to invest in such an investment firm if it has a good track record and a good spread of risks.

[nctnico]

After watching thunderf00t's videos it made no sense to do hyperloop:
1:  Take incredible amount of energy to get near perfect vacuum in such a large cylinder (100's km long) if even possible.
2:  A catastrophic collapse, by nature, by poor design, by poor construction, or even man-made could cause immediate vacuum collapse.
4:  If there was an accident, going 650 - 1000 km/h (~400-600 mph), most of the occupants would be casualties.  How would you rescue them (have to decompression first).  Remember the fire that happened on the Chunnel.  At least they have a middle service/rescue tunnel and at 100 000 Pa (~1 Atmosphere).
5:  If there was even one accident in which multiple casualties, then the hyper-loop system might be abandoned.  Remember what happened to the Concord.
6:  How are you going to have expansion gaps in a vacuum tube?  Steel when heated, causes tremendous pressures.  You have 11um (11 micron meters) of expansion for every meter per degree C.  So let say when they constructed the HYPE-erloop at 20 C (~70 deg F and it went to 38C (~100 deg F) and you have 10km (~6mi) of tubing.  You would have 11 µm/(m °C) * 10000(m) * 18(°C) = 1.98m (about 6.5 ft) of expansion that needs to be taken into consideration every 10km.  This is why bridges and train tracks have gaps.  Gaps are much harder to do when you have to maintain near perfect vacuum.  If the temperature goes down then you have to take into effect thermodynamic contraction also.  The pressures created by this expansion (if steel is constrained) would be enormous (think Hydraulic Press Channel stuff).
7:  This is untested tech at this scale.  So chances are the 1.5x, 2.0x, 2.5x or even 3.0x than their estimated costs and there is always the possibility of it not being possible in the end (think of like a large military weapon system that got axed xx% of the way through the project). In the end would it be economically feasible compare to air travel (can it really compete).

Thunderf00t is a fear mongering idiot. All the problems he mentions are not difficult to address. His video is gringeworthy due to the huge amounts of utter nonsense. Thermal expansion & contraction is a well known phenomenon and there are many ways to deal with it besides adding (sharp) bends.

Accidents will happen but that hasn't stopped people from using mass transport. Airplanes keep falling down and we don't even count cassualties due to car accidents. The Concorde was taken out of service because it was old, expensive and not environmentally friendly. The sensitivity to loose objects on the runway was just the last drop in the bucket.

Whether or not the hyperloop is financially viable is something that can be learned through testing in small steps. That is why the companies involved don't start with a 600km hyperloop where costs could spiral out of control but tens of meters and when that looks good a few km. And tens of km after that. And primarily targeting transport of cargo at first.

[vk6zgo]

Here  just "off the top of my head", are some examples of large investments which never achieved any return to the investors:-

Gas Turbine cars.
Nuclear powered merchant ships (only four were ever built, & only one is still in service).
Nuclear powered Aircraft.
Nuclear powered cars.
Modern Airships
Modern Steamcar
Flying car

No doubt with a bit of searching, I can find many more!

OK, of this seven, two of them were principally government funded, but that leaves five that apparently sane investors poured money into.

The interesting thing is that, much like Hyperloop, none of them were unattainable, given enough money & time, but the problems piled up until they became overwhelming.

[EEVblog]

That is your opinion but it is not backed by the facts. For starters there are multiple companies working on various hyperloop versions being backed by large companies. These companies have experience with investing their money and do their due diligence (they have engineers to asses projects) before making an investment.

Some of the best and smartest companies invested in uBeam and Solar Roadways. Heck, one of the world's largest road construction companies invested in Solar Roadways. But that didn't make it any more practical or viable. I doubt that Virgin for example had a team of crack engineers thoroughly investigate the feasibility and odds of success before they invested. Nor did the Saudi Arabian government.
These sorts of big scale "hype" based investments are very often driven by social factors and not sound engineering vetting.
Shall I mention Theranos? Not a single investor stopped to even ask if it was viable, and that was with a simple blood test machine that was apparently easily debunked if you just looked into the detail. The scale of detail required to fully investigate the feasibility of Hyperloop is an order of magnitude harder.
I'd put money on that no one did any serious due-diligence, it all happened so fast and was surrounded by so much hype, and people with money were ready to throw it around on cool new ideas.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

What is the cost of pumping all the air out of a tunnel hundreds or thousands of kms long and the machinery to do it? And the cost of maintaining all that running 24/7? How much does a suitable vacuum resistant tunnel cost? What maintenance does such a tunnel need? Where is the benefit in having a train that goes, say, 2x as fast but costs, say, 10x more to build and run and maintain? How is that better than two normal trains side by side, or a train twice as long, or two one after another?

Is the the (air) drag of a normal train such a huge cost to justify the hyperloop?

[EEVblog]

Is the the (air) drag of a normal train such a huge cost to justify the hyperloop?

My money says no.
But it's nice to dream about such things, and that's what sells it.
We'll know next year, because that's when the Dubai one is supposed to be finished 
https://www.timeoutdubai.com/travel/394954-uae-hyperloop-opening-date-is-revealed

[ogden]

I doubt that Virgin for example had a team of crack engineers thoroughly investigate the feasibility and odds of success before they invested. Nor did the Saudi Arabian government.

Funny that you avoid to mention SNCF and GE Ventures (subsidiary of General Electrics). Both have loads of knowledgeable people to consult, both invested in Virgin Hyperloop. How's that?

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

And how is it that Obama got a Nobel Prize?

[vk6zgo]

And how is it that Obama got a Nobel Prize?

And how is that remotely on topic?
A finger slip, meant for another forum, perhaps?

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

My point being that some things are inexplicable.