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The Hyperloop Industrial Complex
Jason Koebler writes: Two and a half years after Elon Musk pitched the technology, actually traveling on a hyperloop is still theoretical, but its effect on business is not. There is a very real, bonafide industry of people whose job description is, broadly speaking "make the hyperloop into a tangible thing." The SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Design Weekend at Texas A&M University earlier this weekend was the coming out party for people in that industry.
How much does the battery cost to replace?
Or is the battery non-expendable?
This is what a special-interest framing argument looks like. It puts the question into the reader's mind, and without context (and noting that most readers don't take the time to think about things) it makes it seem like an insurmountable problem.
(Viz: "Ted Cruze's Canadian birth will be a problem for him, I'm just 'sayin".)
Tesla is addressing the battery issue directly, with a buy-back program.
Also note that Lithium batteries have an exponential usage lifetime ('sorta), which means that once you've depleted your battery to 90% of it's capacity, it'll stay at that level for a long time.
Also also note that a battery which is taken out of service will still have 85% of it's charge capacity for a really long time, and there are a lot of uses for such storage. A factory building filled with old Tesla batteries could help smooth out electrical grid demand - supplying power during peak times, and recharging at night.
(Put that building full of batteries next to a wind farm, or inside the industrial area of a large city.)
Again, the batteries will keep 85% of their capacity for a long time, and if the application doesn't care much about space or weight, this makes a good use for older batteries.
Also, no one has even begun thinking about recycling the batteries. Ten years from now we might start thinking about reforming batteries, and making removable/reusable cases with the option to recycle the lithium inside. Like we now do with lead.
And finally, all of this information is just a click away using this neat new service called "Google".
Implanting doubts, uncertainty, and fear in the minds of readers is so much harder nowadays.
If by average purchase you mean average age of cars on the road, you're very wrong. The average age of a car on the road in the US just surpassed 11 years old. This is exactly why the longevity and long term resale of a car is very important. I know I won't even think about an electric car until they ensure it will last at least 10 years without an expensive overall. I'm currently driving a 14 year old car and have no plans to buy a new one as this one keeps going strong, I have real doubts the same can be said for electrics.
Now here's a huge issue I haven't seen anyone talking about that gets progressively worse as the track/tube length increases, subsidence and ground movement.
The subsidence / ground movement effect is dwarfed by the simple thermal expansion of the tube over the day/night cycle, which can grow/shrink up to hundreds of meters over the length of the tube. This effect can be compensated for by allowing the tube to slide smoothly across the pylons to achieve tensile equilibrium. (Perhaps with motorized assist to overcome friction.) The "slack" is taken up at the endpoint stations, through a telescoping system. Each pylon can allow for perhaps a meter of lateral flex to account for local ground shifting, and the pylons themselves can be easily repositioned if they start to get close to their tolerances in a local area.
By the way, how much material would such a full sized tube use up, and whats the current national production of said materials?
The complete Alpha-design hyperloop from LA to SF would use about 1 million tons of steel, or about 0.02% of the world's current annual steelmaking output. For scale, this is about 10x more steel than the Birds Nest stadium in Beijing, or about 100 Eiffel Towers' worth.
Weeks of coding saves hours of planning.