Is It Finally Time For High-Speed Hyperloop Transportation?

Transport needs to be decarbonized at every level if we are to meet climate goals. One of the most effective ways to reduce the emissions from midrange travel distances is via electric trains, but even the fastest locomotives are quite slow by plane standards. This is the problem the ultrafast Hyperloop was intended to fix, and recent developments could be bringing it closer to a reality again. One proponent of the idea, Hyperloop Transport Technologies (TT), has acquired the financial tools it needs to move to the next stage of development.

HyperloopTT recently entered a merger agreement with Forest Road Acquisition Corp. II (NYSE: FRXB), the SPAC of ex-Disney executives Kevin Mayer and Tom Staggs. The joint company will trade as HYPE. This has valued the combined company at around $400 million, with the potential to hit $565 million. However, HyperloopTT isn’t a traditional corporation making products. It has been amassing patents, trademarks and technologies relating to the levitation, propulsion and near-vacuum tube transportation required to make the hyperloop idea happen.

HyperloopTT was founded in 2013 but is unorthodox in its structure. The company has been built through crowdsourcing, with 800 contributors and 50 collaborators. This makes it light on assets and more of a technology coordinator. Although the idea of the Hyperloop is most frequently associated with Elon Musk, he has no direct association with HyperloopTT. It was more of an idea he proposed of how mass transport could be revolutionized, with implementation up to those interested in taking on the challenge.

Hyperloop has been in development for years. In fact, I attended a presentation from HyperloopTT about it in 2016 at SXSW in Austin. The amusingly named Bibop Gresta, one of the original founders, presented the idea of “Crowdsourcing the Hyperloop”. At that time the goal was already to achieve speeds of 1,200km/h (750mph), and HyperloopTT is maintaining that dream. To put that in perspective, the Japanese Shinkansen Bullet Train travels at up to 320km/h (199mph) and a typical long-haul jet will travel at around 800-900km/h (497-562mph), so Hyperloop is potentially quicker than anything bar a supersonic jetliner, which currently don’t exist in public use. Concorde could manage 2,179km/h (1,354mph), but that went out of service in 2003.

During the SXSW talk, HyperloopTT talked about a deal with Slovakia to implement a system by 2020 that would link Bratislava to Vienna. Unfortunately, that dream appears to have died in 2018 due to a failure to find suitable land for the route. But development continues elsewhere, which current CEO Andres de Leon discussed with me in a recent interview. HyperloopTT is part of a consortium bidding for a development from Venice to Padona that is 10km long and is costing around 800 million Euros ($827 million) to build. A commercial prototype is also being built in Colorado. These initial designs are intended to reach over 600km/h, with a goal to be ready for 800-900km/h soon. HyperloopTT also has a test track in Toulouse that is just 320 meters long but is the only full-scale Hyperloop track yet.

The basic idea behind Hyperloop transportation is to use a semi vacuum to reduce friction and put the motive force in the track rather than the capsules, so the efficiency is as high as possible. The technology to achieve this passive magnetic levitation comes from an Inductrack system. This means the capsules don’t have to provide their own high-speed propulsion or carry a large amount of energy with them, as it comes from the tracks.

The capsules will have the ability to move themselves within stations where the vacuum isn’t available, however. Unlike traditional trains, a Hyperloop system wouldn’t use long vehicles with many carriages. The HyperloopTT design would involve individual capsules for 28-50 passengers, or two 20-foot containers, or one 40-foot container. By sending these capsules individually, the service can vary traffic levels with needs, reducing the cost of providing passenger transit at times of low volume.

HyperloopTT also plans to install solar power panels along its tubes, so that it can generate electricity to offset some of its consumption. The company also claims that its infrastructure is potentially cheaper to install than a traditional train and more flexible, due to only transporting individual capsules at a time rather than huge, heavy trains made up of many cars chained together. This means that the track-tubes don’t need such heavy-duty installations.

Due to the “open source” nature of Hyperloop, the technology is not unique, and other companies are targeting different applications. HyperloopTT is focusing mainly on passenger transportation and light freight, whereas Hyperloop One is focusing on heavier cargo. HyperloopTT itself is not a train company but a developer of technology, which it will then license to national and commercial train companies to implement themselves, so applications could vary.

"We believe the time for hyperloop is now,” says de Leon. “The readiness of the technology, our near-term project pipeline that include projects in the US and Europe, and recent regulatory advancements that are advantageous for hyperloop like the classification of hyperloop under the Federal Rail Administration (FRA), along with the publication of the European Commission Desk Standards that include hyperloop, are the reason we’re moving forward with this transaction. Countries like Italy are now funding hyperloop systems and China has been said to have completed testing and moving forward with construction. With those developments and the regulatory advances in the US and Europe we believe that hyperloop is here to stay."

It is without doubt exciting to imagine journeys of little more than an hour to go from New York to Chicago, or less than an hour to go from London to Glasgow (it currently takes nearly five hours), or an hour from Paris to Berlin. It’s even more exciting to think that this could be achieved in an environmentally friendly fashion. HyperloopTT claims its goal is to improve the way we travel and connect to each other in a sustainable way. There’s obviously a lot more to do before the dream becomes a reality, but maybe now this reality is a bit closer than it was in 2016.