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New images of the Hyperloop test track in Nevada [Video]

Hyperloop technologies (HT) co-founders Shervin Pishevar and Brogan BamBrogan were at the Launch Festival last week and sat down with Jason Calacanis to discuss the latest progress in making Elon Musk’s fifth mode of transportation a reality.

Pishevar confirmed that the company has been growing steadily with now 129 full-time employees. We recently revealed that HT hired the man behind the failed ‘UK Ultraspeed’ maglev project to lead the company’s global business development for passenger systems. The startup made several other high-profile hires, especially in engineering.

BamBrogan commented on SpaceX’s Hyperloop Pod Competition and confirmed that HT will be sponsoring several teams and already hired a few participants.

The two co-founders also released new images of their test track under-construction in North Las Vegas – (the video is set to start at the drone footage of the track):

Later on, Pishevar hinted to something even more interesting than the test track. He said that are governments around the world that are “interested and excited” about working with the company and he added that the first place that will get a Hyperloop will likely be outside of the US.

But then when Calacanis pressed him about a location in the US if it were to happen, Pishevar started talking about Lieutenant Governor of California Gavin Newsom, who is running for Governor in 2018 and happened to be in the room, and he hinted that a “leader like Newsom” could potentially introduce a referendum for Californians to vote on replacing the currently planned $70 billion California High-Speed Rail with a new Hyperloop route between San Francisco and Los Angeles, which BamBrogan estimates could cost only about one-third of the current budget of the California High-Speed Rail.

When Elon Musk first proposed the Hyperloop and published his 2013 whitepaper on the subject, it was mainly to offer an alternative to the California High-Speed Rail, which he saw as too expensive and slow.

But stakeholders in the project are still moving forward. Is there really still a chance for the Hyperloop to replace the California High-Speed Rail?

 

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Comments

  1. Real Apple Nerd - 8 years ago

    Seriously, the Hyperloop needs to replace the bulls**t train here in CA.

    • Nathanael - 8 years ago

      The Hyperloop is bulls**t. It’s vaporware which will eventually become an overpriced, underperfoming boondoggle.

      The high speed rail, by contrast, is real, off-the-shelf tech which works all over the world.

  2. Mike Stogner - 8 years ago

    Bring it to Vegas!

  3. Neal Thomas Iskenderian - 8 years ago

    This is just stupid, it won’t cost less to build, is unproven technology, and will run truly from nowhere to nowhere. By LA to SF they mean somewhere in the outer suburbs to somewhere in the Far East bay, in a straight line so riders don’t puke their guts out. Build real height speed rail already and stop wasting energy on stupid things like the hyper loop.

    • Real Apple Nerd - 8 years ago

      I hope that is sarcasm.

      The “high-speed” rail will not be high-speed, is already massively over budget, and the first leg will run between nowhere to nowhere (Madera and Fresno).

      • Neal Thomas Iskenderian - 8 years ago

        I don’t know how you define high speed rail, but 320 Km/h, which the CAHSR (like many other systems around the world) will certainly attain, especially through the San Joaquin valley is considered high speed. Even Amtrak’s Acela Express at 250 km/h is high speed.

        Also the first operating segment is not Madera to Fresno, it appears to now be Bakersfield to San Jose crossing the Pacheco Pass. I’m sure that the million or so people within the San Joaquin valley near the stations will find the 30 minute commute to the Silicon Valley of use. But again, that is only the first segment to open. It’s not like we waited until the entire interstate highway system was finished before opening any part of it.

  4. Nathanael - 8 years ago

    What a spectacular waste of money from a bunch of bullshit artists.

    Some people have stated that the Hyperloop, which will never be functional or cost-effective (it would easily cost twice as much as CAHSR), was simply a stunt done as political sabotage to attack CAHSR. This appears to be the case.

  5. Dave Gormley - 8 years ago

    The HyperLoop is not just figuratively but literally ‘a pipe dream’. It’s also not new. Remember the Jetsons? This idea of a pipe that you get blown through has been in cartoons and SiFi since there was TV. It’s a napkin based idea with the the solidity of what it has been written on.
    D

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