Hyperloop or Hype: Can Elon Musk's Wild Transport Idea Work?
How would you like to get around in a vehicle that “never crashes, that’s at least twice as fast as a plane, that’s solar powered, and that leaves right when you arrive, so there is no waiting for a departure time”? Sounds a little too good to be true, but that is precisely what serial entrepreneur Elon Musk’s is aiming to do with “Hyperloop,” an as-yet-mysterious form of transportation he has proposed. Furthermore, the Hyperloop would be shockingly cheap: A path between San Francisco and Los Angeles would cost only about $6 billion to build, according to Musk—a tenth of the estimated cost of the proposed California bullet train. If it were anyone but Musk making these claims, people would likely assume he was loony and ignore the hype. But after his amazing success leading companies that build electric cars (Tesla) and private spacecraft (SpaceX), his big talk is giving some people big hope for a transit revolution.
One big question about the Hyperloop is what exactly it is. Musk has been cagey, describing the idea as a “cross between a Concorde, a rail gun [an electrically powered
