The Fifth Mode of Transportation Chris Moxley

The Fifth Mode of Transportation

Chris Moxley

Dr. Bray

Math of the Universe

25 April 2016

One of the most commonly prognosticated aspects of the future is innovation in transportation technologies. This idea has always captivated the imagination of creative thinkers, as exemplified by Leonardo Da Vinci’s 1493 sketch of a possible helicopter some 450 years before its time (Leonardo Da Vinci Inventions). This trend might seem odd, but transportation innovations have proven to be incredibly influential. To provide two illustrative examples: without its patented innovations in road-building, the Roman empire likely could not have sustained the infrastructure necessary to extend its dominion over such vast territory, and the invention of the steamboat streamlined the American economy by providing easier navigation upstream of the mighty Mississippi River (Cartwright and University of Virginia). In modern times, it is often either the flying car that is next predicted to be ubiquitous, as seen in Back to the Future or The Jetsons for example, or revolutions in spacecraft capabilities, as portrayed by Star Wars or Interstellar. However, eccentric billionaire Elon Musk has his own vision for advancing nations’ infrastructures into the new age: the Hyperloop. Before diving into the feasibility of this burgeoning technology, it is helpful to briefly understand the story of Musk.

It is important to first generally understand Elon Musk because he is the creator and most prominent proponent of the idea of the Hyperloop, and this would not be the first innovation Musk has successfully championed. My colleague JJ Laio has already written in-depth about Musk, so to avoid redundancy I will only include a few of the most relevant details. Musk dropped out of his Stanford PhD. program in the late 1990s to found the startup Zip2 amidst the Internet boom (Biography). He found immediate success when in “1999 a division of Compaq Computer Company bought Zip2 for $307 million in cash and $34 million in stock options” (Biography). Building off of this achievement, Musk attempted greater and greater endeavors, beginning with the development and sale of PayPal in 2002 and continuing with the founding and growth of his two current companies, Tesla Motors and SpaceX (Forbes). Though SpaceX has suffered setbacks, such as a 2015 explosion of shuttle Falcon 9’s rockets mid-launch, it has begun to profit due in large part to Musk’s determination to endure short-term failure for the sake of long-term success (Forbes). As Laio writes, Musk’s companies are successful because they are able to “provide innovative designs on a variety of services all while at lower cost than its competitors” (Laio 6). In short, his teams are able to devise creative approaches to their challenges and then quickly develop cost-minimizing strategies to execute these approaches. The important takeaway from this brief biography is that Musk does not simply want to profit from his business ventures, he wants to change the world through his ideas, and he is therefore willing to incur failure along the way if he believes resolutely in the end goal. At the same time, he has the connections, capital, and innovative spirit necessary to make his visions a reality. This combination means that any initiative he feels passionate about should be given serious consideration as a possibility because Musk is not one to waste time with frivolous dead-ends or invest in something halfheartedly. With this in mind, it is time to dive into one of his latest ventures, the Hyperloop.

The Hyperloop, marketed as the 5^th mode of transportation, is Musk’s devised alternative to air and train travel, with an emphasis on speed and safety. It was initially proposed to the public in a paper published in August of 2013 by Musk, and several tech groups have started developing the idea since (Davies). It theoretically functions as a fully enclosed tube connecting two locations upwards of several hundred miles apart that “maintains an ultra-low pressure environment” so that the pod, “powered by an electric propulsion system”, can reach speeds “up to 700 mph” due to the absence of standard air resistance (Hyperloop Tech). The air compressor, or fan, “sucks in air instead of displacing it” so the pod is “pulled forward rather than pushed as in traditional modes of transportation” (Hyperloop Tech). Proponents claim that it will be safer than plane or train travel because “the compressed air is then used to levitate the pod via air bearings” that will be controlled automatically to perform electric braking or, if necessary, mechanical breaking, all without requiring a driver, though it should be noted that many current engineers suspect using existing magnetic levitation technologies will be more feasible than air bearing levitation in the near future (Hyperloop Tech and Dicas). Either way, since the tube is fully enclosed by its carbon-steel shell, travel is not affected by adverse climate conditions, which minimizes delays, repair costs, and dangers posed by inclement weather (Hyperloop Tech). To support all of this theory, Elon Musk’s initial proposal offers a specific example that makes the technology seem not just simple and effective but cost efficient. In his proposal, a Hyperloop would connect the nearly 400 miles between San Francisco and Los Angeles to allow travelers to transit between the cities in an incredible 35 minutes (Musk 57). He estimates that “the total cost of the Hyperloop passenger transportation system as outlined is less than $6 billion USD”, while creating a Hyperloop track that could also provide cargo transportation would only cost an additional 1.5 billion (Musk 57). He claims that it would pay for itself over twenty years with 7.4 million passengers each way a year paying $20/passage (Musk 57). Proponents make this seem like a great investment, but not everyone is sold.




A diagram of a potential Hyperloop pod

Photo from Wikimedia Commons


Musk’s cost breakdown for the passenger-only model

Photo from his Hyperloop Alpha White Paper

Most skeptics admit that Musk presents sound physics in his plan but worry about his cost estimates. For example, aeronautics professor at MIT John Hansman says that he does not “see anything that violates fundamental laws of physics” but wants to know “not could you do it, but could you do it in a way that makes sense from an energy efficiency standpoint and makes sense from an economic standpoint” because it is unclear “how much energy the system would require” (Bullis). Musk’s $6 billion cost estimate puts construction of the track at $11.5 million per mile, but one company, Hyperloop Transportation, estimates that that figure could approach $20 million per mile (Dicas). In fact, their 5-mile long test track is operating on a $173 million budget (Dicas). The challenge is to minimize these costs by minimizing the energy required to maintain the low-pressure environment. The positive sign is that there are already capable and well-funded people producing the technology.

Musk concluded his Hyperloop paper by explicitly clarifying that it is an “open source transportation concept”, meaning that others are encouraged to take up the mantle for its production, particularly since he is so focused on SpaceX’s other endeavors (Musk 58). Resulting from this, a collection of scientists and venture capitalists have formed the Hyperloop Transportation Technologies group, while a smaller tech startup has formed the confusingly-named Hyperloop Technologies group, and both are competing to best develop the technology (Dicas). In January of 2016, Hyperloop Technologies started constructing a five-mile long test track in Nevada to be completed in 2021, while Hyperloop Transportation will break ground on their test track in California later in 2016 (Cuthbertson). This California test track is going to be especially useful because SpaceX just held a college competition this past year to see who could build the best Hyperloop pod design, with the winner, MIT, receiving the opportunity to test out their model on the track (Hawkins). Despite this progress, constructing a fully-functional Hyperloop in California is still unlikely in the next decade because of the politics involved in securing the land and passing safety regulations; however, interestingly enough, Slovakia is already set to become the first country with Hyperloop technology, commissioning Hyperloop Transportation Technologies to have the first stage of the track built in Bratislava by 2020 at the cost of $200-300 million USD (Davies). The concept is currently at a critical juncture, as whether or not it becomes an accepted 5^th mode of transportation in the next fifteen years depends heavily on what these initial tests and the Slovakia track reveal about the energy intake, among other logistical challenges. By the end of 2016, it should be much clearer whether this is an inevitable and rapidly progressing technology, or if it is simply another one of Musk’s ideas that, like Da Vinci’s helicopter, are perhaps slightly ahead of their time.

The Hyperloop is an exciting and realistic future prospect for transportation. The compression of air in a low-pressure tube should theoretically be able to provide safe and incredibly fast travel between cities with a few hundred miles separating them. The physics behind the idea is sound, it is just a matter of cost-minimizing to an efficient point, a task which Elon Musk has built a career out of with his efforts at SpaceX and Tesla. Deals have already been made to introduce the Hyperloop to Slovakia, and impending tests in the United States will provide a lot more data to understand the cost-effectiveness of the technology. Everything considered, the Hyperloop has strong potential to spark the next transportation revolution, though it remains unclear until further testing whether this will be within the decade or several years down the road.

Works Cited

Biography. "Elon Musk." Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, 2016. Web. 24 Apr. 2016.

Bullis, Kevin. "Experts Raise Doubts Over Elon Musk's Hyperloop Dream." MIT Technology Review. MIT, 12 Aug. 2013. Web. 24 Apr. 2016.

Cartwright, Mark. "Roman Roads." Ancient History Encyclopedia. Ancient History Encyclopedia Limited, 17 Sept. 2014. Web. 24 Apr. 2016.

Cuthbertson, Anthony. "Elon Musk's Hyperloop Test Track Construction Begins in Nevada." International Business Times RSS. IB Times Co, 07 Jan. 2016. Web. 24 Apr. 2016.

Davies, Alex. "Slovakia Is a Natural First Stop for the Hyperloop-No Joke." Wired.com. Conde Nast Digital, 11 Mar. 2016. Web. 24 Apr. 2016.

Davies, Alex. "So Elon Musk’s Hyperloop Is Actually Getting Kinda Serious." Wired.com. Conde Nast Digital, 20 Aug. 2015. Web. 24 Apr. 2016.

Hawkins, Andrew. "MIT Wins SpaceX's Hyperloop Competition, and Elon Musk Made a Cameo." The Verge. Vox Media, 30 Jan. 2016. Web. 24 Apr. 2016.

Hyperloop Technologies. "Hyperloop Is Changing the Way We Think about Transportation." Hyperloop Technologies. Hyperloop Technologies, 2015. Web. 24 Apr. 2016.

Laio, JJ. "Space Exploration Technologies and Elon Musk." Math of the Universe. Laio, 28 Mar. 2016. Web. 24 Apr. 2016.

Leonardo Da Vinci's Inventions. "The Helicopter." Leonardo Da Vinci's Inventions. Leonardo Da Vinci's Inventions, 2016. Web. 24 Apr. 2016.

Musk, Elon. "Hyperloop Alpha." SpaceX. SpaceX, 12 Aug. 2013. Web. 24 Apr. 2016.

Nicas, Jack. "Hyperloop Race Picks Up Speed." WSJ. Dow Jones & Company, 27 Jan. 2016. Web. 24 Apr. 2016.

University of Virginia. “Steamboats.” Steamboats. University of Virginia, 2016. Web. 25 Apr. 2016.