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Virgin Hyperloop One to build a research facility in Spain
Virgin Hyperloop One announced today that it's expanding into Europe. The company plans to build a $500 million development facility in the small village of Bobadilla located in the Andalusian region of Spain. The center will develop, test and certify components of the firm's hyperloop systems -- though there won't be a test track at this location, a spokesperson told The Verge -- and it's projected to be up and running by 2020.
Apple's home city Cupertino wants a Hyperloop
Cupertino, the city that hosts Apple's gigantic "spaceship campus," said it's in preliminary talks with Hyperloop to bring the high speed train to town. "We are talking to Hyperloop to have a line," said councilor Barry Chang. "If this comes to a realization, it would only take five minutes from DeAnza College to downtown San Jose instead of a couple hours."
SpaceX Hyperloop pod reached almost 300 mph in latest competition
Contestants lined their prospective Hyperloop pods on SpaceX's 1.25-kilometer track at the company's Hawthorne, California headquarters -- and for the third time, the WARR student team from the Technical University of Munich won the competition. This time, their vehicle topped out at 290 miles per hour, which beat the team's previous record of 200 mph set last August.
China pours $1 billion into a 'Hyperloop' for cars
Just a day after Hyperloop TT announced a deal in China, another high-speed transport startup has done the same. Arrivo, Brogan BamBrogan's not-quite Hyperloop company, has entered into partnership with GTA a wholly-owned subsidiary of a company that's owned by the Chinese government. As part of the deal, GTA will offer up $1 billion worth of credit to back potential Arrivo projects worldwide.
Elon Musk pitches 150 MPH rides in Boring Company tunnels for $1
Tonight at The Boring Company Information Session not all of the talk centered on flamethrowers. Elon Musk and project leader Steve Davis described many details of their visions for an underground network that could alleviate traffic problems in big cities. Musk said "we're not suggesting this to the exclusion of other approaches," but did take a moment to call out flying taxi solutions (like Uber Elevate) right off the bat due to danger and noise.
Elon Musk to offer free rides in his LA traffic-dodging tunnel
Elon Musk has posted a video of Boring Company's first nearly completed tunnel under Los Angeles, which heads towards LAX and has an extra entrance at the SpaceX Hawthorne HQ. The multi-company chief said the tunnel is almost done, pending regulatory approvals that will allow the Boring team to offer free rides to the public as soon as a few months from now. While people will eventually have to pay to ride Boring's electric pods, he said it will cost commuters even less than a bus ticket. If true, then the company's shuttles and tunnels could easily become the transportation method of choice.
Hyperloop One and DP World launch a cargo-only shipping business
Virgin Hyperloop One and DP World have announced the launch of a new company that will push the technology into the cargo industry. DP World Cargospeed is a new project that will see the pair look to build Hyperloop-enabled cargo systems to transport "palletized cargo." It's not much of a departure from what Hyperloop One has always said it would do, but the new company will be responsible for making it work.
Hyperloop TT plans to build a working line in Abu Dhabi in 2019
Hyperloop Transportation Technologies has announced that it has signed a deal to begin construction on a working Hyperloop in 2019. The company will work with Aldar Properties PJSC, an Abu Dhabi-based real estate developer, on both a route, innovation center and visitor center. The plan is to begin with a very small trip of track close to the border separating Dubai and Abu Dhabi, and growing from there. If successful, then it's possible the United Arab Emirates will be connected by a network of high-speed vacuum tubes.
Hyperloop TT begins construction of its first test track
Hyperloop Transportation Technologies has announced that it will begin building the first of two test tracks at its facility in France. In a statement, the company said that the first shipment of tubes has arrived at its R&D site in Toulouse. The first track, which is about to enter construction, is a ground-level setup running around 320 meters in length. It's thought that the smaller run will be ready for testing at some point this year.
Hyperloop TT's expansion continues with a Brazil tech center
From what sounded like a pretty crazy Elon Musk scheme, hyperloop transportation has been shaping up into a real system, over the last six months or so. After a slow start one of the two main players, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT), has expanding quickly, opening a new tech center in Toulouse, France. Now, it's unveiled plans to open a global innovation center for logistics called XO Square in Minas Gerais, Brazil.
Elon Musk's Boring Company to prioritize pedestrians over cars
While we ponder the state of hyperloop tunnel transportation, Elon Musk just updated the plan for The Boring Company. The tech exec tweeted out a new concept video that focuses on a shuttle instead of cars. The shuttle (seen briefly in the first Boring Company video) is intended to carry people and bikes, and Musk said that Boring Company's loop network would have "1000's of small stations the size of a single parking space."
Hyperloop is edging closer to reality
Plenty has happened in the five years since Elon Musk first published his white paper on a system he called hyperloop. Since releasing that manifesto to the world, hundreds of people and hundreds of millions of dollars have been put to work, all in the service of bringing Musk's retro-futurist dream of a vacuum tube for people to life. And despite being less than a fever dream half a decade ago, the pace of innovation is notably increasing, with 2018 already including several big announcements regarding its future.
Elon Musk gets Hyperloop digging permit in Washington, DC
Last year, the internet needled Elon Musk for tweeting he had verbal approval to dig a Hyperloop tunnel in Washington, DC, because officials said they granted no such thing. Now, however, The Boring Company does have an honest-to-gosh written permit, albeit only for some preliminary site preparation and excavation, the Washington Post reports.
India inches ahead in the race to build a Hyperloop
Plenty of places have committed to exploring the economic viability of building a Hyperloop, but nobody has been brave enough to say they'll actually construct one. It's why the news coming out of India's latest announcement is such a big deal, because it includes a pledge to build a working test track.
How Elon Musk plays on our science fiction dreams
Elon Musk has said that he wants to die on Mars -- after it's been colonized by his company SpaceX. He may not have the precise details yet, but Musk will figure out the mission in style: The SpaceX space suits are sleek and form-fitting, while his cherry red Tesla sports car will be aboard the maiden flight of the interplanetary Falcon Heavy rocket. Meanwhile, on Earth, he'll work on connecting our brains to computers through tiny electrodes, building underground networks of car sleds that function like a personal subway system, firing passenger trains through a vacuum tube at the speed of sound and replacing air travel with his Big Fucking Rocket (BFR) spaceship that gets passengers anywhere on the planet in under an hour. That's without mentioning his efforts to advance electric cars and solar energy. Or the fact that this week, he made $10 million in four days by selling promotional flamethrowers.
Missouri wants to bring Hyperloop to the midwest
The state of Missouri has signed a deal with Virgin Hyperloop One to investigate if it's worth building a high-speed link between three of its biggest cities. A team of interested parties will examine the feasibility of constructing a route between Kansas City, Columbia and St Louis, parallel to I-70. That will include looking at the engineering challenges, as well as the potential economic benefits of such a route.
Touring Hyperloop One's ever-evolving test site
Virgin Hyperloop One, a company that's developing a new way of moving people around the world, has precedent when it comes to missing deadlines. The company pledged to test a fully working Hyperloop by the end of 2016, but its first test didn't take place until Aug. 2017. The future doesn't conform to timetables, and we can forgive plenty, but it's still with trepidation that the company sets its next ambitious goal. It intends to have a full-size, passenger-ready Hyperloop in operation by 2021. After touring the transport company's DevLoop site in Clark County, Nevada, it's clear the challenges now aren't technical but political.
Hyperloop One and Here made an app for imaginary Hyperloops
Virgin Hyperloop One has teamed up with mapping company Here to build an app that lets you pretend that Hyperloops are real. The app is designed to be your transportation portal in a future where vacuum tubes are connecting all of our major cities as one. Imagine a version of Citymapper that let you choose between cars, planes, trains or Hyperloops as you jump between, for instance, Las Vegas and LA.
Hyperloop One co-founder steps down amid sexual harassment claims
Silicon Valley's sexual harassment problem just keeps going. Forbes reports that Shervin Pishevar, founder of Sherpa Capital and Hyperloop (and an early Uber investor), is taking a leave of absence from both companies, just a few days after allegations of sexual harassment from five women were reported by Bloomberg.
Denver will test its own Hyperloop-inspired transport system
Colorado's Department of Transportation has teamed up with Arrivo to use Hyperloop-ish technology to connect the city of Denver. The partnership is looking at ways to use vacuum tubes to reduce congestion and create a local transport area that bridges distances far faster than at present.
