Hansen
You didn’t come here for investment advice, but a good rule of thumb I have is this: If any company or technology can effectively sell you back your TIME, that is one company you should invest in. Amazon allows you to shop within the comfort of your home, avoiding wasted time traveling through crowded shopping malls. Uber (probably not a good investment anymore now) gives you an on-demand taxi service, saving you from waiting and looking like an idiot while hailing cabs. Aside from the end products/services, these companies sell you convenience and time so you can do other things.
Hyperloop One Global Challenge
So when Elon Musk, the brains behind highly successful companies like PayPal, SpaceX, and Tesla, announced way back in the summer of 2013 of the Hyperloop concept, a mode of transportation he claims will take you from San Francisco to Los Angeles in 35 minutes, I spat my drink. When/If that becomes a reality the transportation industry as we know it will be completely transformed.
Hyperloop One, the only company attempting to build an operational and commercial Hyperloop system, has been assembling a large team, which by year’s end they hope to compile 500 engineers, fabricators, scientists and other employees to bring the technology to life. To help gather that team, the company put together the Hyperloop One Global Challenge
The Hyperloop One Global Challenge kicked off in May 2016 as an open call to individuals, universities, companies and governments to develop comprehensive proposals for deploying Hyperloop One’s transport technology in their region. Five of the proposals – including those from Texas, Florida, Colorado, Nevada and Missouri – involve officials from their state Departments of Transportation.
Proposed routes that would greatly reduce passenger and cargo transport times across some of the country’s most heavily trafficked regions including Los Angeles–San Diego, Miami–Orlando and Seattle–Portland. The longest distance proposal, Cheyenne–Houston, would run 1,152 miles across four states, reducing to 1 hour and 45 minutes a journey that currently takes 17 hours by car or truck.
Hyperloop One’s panel of experts in transportation, technology, economics and innovation are considering the following route proposals:
Proposed Routes
|
ROUTE NAME |
PROPOSING TEAM |
ROUTE LENGTH |
|
Boston-Somerset-Providence |
Hyperloop Massachusetts |
64 mi |
|
Cheyenne-Houston |
Rocky Mountain Hyperloop Consortium |
1152 mi |
|
Chicago-Columbus-Pittsburgh |
Hyperloop Midwest |
488 mi |
|
Colorado Front Range/ Mtn. Network |
Rocky Mountain Hyperloop |
360 mi |
|
Colorado Front Range |
Colorado Hyperloop |
242 mi |
|
Kansas City-St. Louis |
Hyperloop Missouri |
240 mi |
|
Los Angeles-San Diego |
Hyperloop West |
121 mi |
|
Miami-Orlando |
Hyperloop Florida |
257 mi |
|
Reno-Las Vegas |
Hyperloop Nevada |
454 mi |
|
Seattle-Portland |
PNW Hyperloop |
173 mi |
|
Texas Triangle |
Hyperloop Texas |
640 mi |
Affect On Property Value
Just like how property values can be affected by major transportation hubs like trains, subways, and rail stations. We can expect the 35 cities along the Hyperloop routes to skyrocket in value. Suddenly, people living in those areas will not just have a faster mode of transportation, but they’ll be provided with more choices, more convenience, and most importantly more time.
Technical Challenges
Watching the banker suck your signed checks through vacuum tubes certainly lends credence that the Hyperloop technology will work. But taking that idea and applying it to a human scale creates many technical and logistical challenges. Here is a short list of worrying questions that we’re certain the Hyperloop One team will have to address:
How can you ensure low-pressure vacuum throughout the ENTIRE route, which spans hundreds of miles?
What kind of energy will be required to generate the vacuum and propel the subway train sized pods/capsules?
And will it be economically feasible?
What are some of the possible failure modes?
What can be done to prevent those failures?
What are the security measures that prevents bad actors from sabotaging routes?
How catastrophic will Hyperloop accidents be?
Before this breakthrough mode of transportation comes to fruition there is certainly plenty of challenges ahead. Regardless, these worries were talked about when we began riding cars, trains, and airplanes.
Do you live near these cities? What do you think about this technology and how it will impact your daily life?
(Source: PRNewsWire)
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