Archinect - News

'Hyperloop as transportation’s new girlfriend: mysterious, unencumbered, exciting, expensive.'

2016-05-24T13:12:00-04:00

“What we’re seeing right now is what I saw in 1996,” said Mr. Lloyd, a former president of sales and development at Cisco. “We all had I.P. routers and everything was done a certain way. At Cisco, we said, ‘You can carry that over the Internet,’ and everyone said, ‘No.’ But those high-speed networks made the Internet possible.” Hyperloop, he said, “will do to the physical world what the Internet did to the digital one.”

Allison Arieff (editorial director at SPUR and former Dry Futures judge) has some questions for Hyperloop One (formerly Hyperloop Technologies) after a propulsion test demonstration in the Nevada desert. While the company has managed remarkably fast developments in its tube technology for such high-speeds as the Hyperloop demands, it's nowhere near reality – and Arieff clearly articulates the (many) remaining concerns of such technology, after mere feasibility.

Related on Archinect:

Hyperloop hopefuls turn to 'passive' maglev technology

2016-05-10T13:47:00-04:00

"Utilizing a passive levitation system will eliminate the need for power stations along the Hyperloop track, which makes this system the most suitable for the application and will keep construction costs low," [...] "From a safety aspect, the system has huge advantages, levitation occurs purely through movement, therefore if any type of power failure occurs, Hyperloop pods would continue to levitate and only after reaching minimal speeds touch the ground."

Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (not to be confused with Hyperloop Technologies Inc., a peer company also hoping to realize Elon Musk's hyperloop vision) published a statement yesterday announcing the company had licensed "passive magnetic levitation" technology to power their Hyperloop prototype.

Billed as "a cheaper, safer alternative" to maglev technology, the passive magnetic levitation doesn't require as much infrastructural build-out, as it doesn't need to be powered by sources along the track. The system is "passive" insofar as instead of using superconducting magnets or powered electromagnets, it uses "permanent room-temperature magnets, similar to the familiar bar magnet". You can read all about the technology here.

More Hyperloop on Archinect:

Reality checking the Hyperloop hyperbole

2016-01-19T13:25:00-05:00

[Hyperloop] has the swagger of Elon Musk rather than the stigma of a public bureaucracy. Second, it’s going to be, like, a billion times faster than HSR. [...] And yet, this combination of enthusiasm and magnetism doesn’t buy farmland. It doesn’t ease eminent domain takings. It doesn’t blast through bedrock or relocate utilities. It doesn’t design station area plans. [...] The very same mountains, cities, canals, farmers, and habitats that complicate HSR also complicate Hyperloop.

For past reporting on Hyperloop in all its emerging forms:

A first look at the Hyperloop's real tubes and imagined winged terminals

2016-01-07T12:54:00-05:00

Elon Musk’s vision of the Hyperloop — a lightning-fast transportation system that would shuttle passengers at speeds nearing 700-mph using low pressure tubes and air compressors — is slowly coming to fruition in the Nevada desert. In fact, the first ever Hyperloop tubes are neatly lined up in a ditch, waiting to be assembled and then later tested by Hyperloop Technologies at a site in North Las Vegas.

The design of the Hyperloop—an iterative, multi-team process which Archinect investigated in-depth last year—will have another big leap forward during the "Hyperloop Design Weekend" this upcoming January 29-30th at Texas A&M University.

However, while CEO of Hyperloop Technologies Rob Lloyd describes the opaque, depressurized tubular architecture of the technology as being "actually very simple", the renderings in the video below feature some highly stylized, winged structural accompaniments, making one wonder what the winners of potential future design competitions for the Hyperloop's transit stations will look like.

LA County residents protest planned high-speed rail

2015-06-09T20:21:00-04:00

A diverse alliance of communities — including Los Angeles County's third-largest city — is fighting California's long-planned bullet train route into the heart of the San Fernando Valley, saying it would bring irreparable harm... The coalition of communities is demanding that only routes that are predominantly underground should be considered. The growing resistance is coming in part from urban, working-class neighborhoods that are portraying the surface route as an environmental injustice.

In short, the bullet train faces opposition from basically every direction. One proposed route, which would include several above-ground stretches, worries residents of the town of San Fernando – because it would basically cleave the city in two, wiping out a significant chunk of the downtown. And attempts to pursue underground routes have faced criticism because of the possibility of harmful interactions with the state's complex of fault lines and already-precarious aquifers.

Meanwhile, in Downtown LA, Elon Musk's team continues to develop the Hyperloop...

LA's Arts District now home to Hyperloop World Headquarters

2015-03-24T19:41:00-04:00

A source close to [Hyperloop Technologies Inc.], who was not authorized speak publicly, confirmed the company has moved into the space, which was chosen in part so Hyperloop could be around artists and designers and other creative types in a space big enough to build large-scale hardware. [...] Funded by a reported $8.5 million in seed money, the company has raised an additional $20 million of the estimated $80 million it will need to build a five-mile Hyperloop test track