New Maglev Elevator Can Travel Horizontally, Vertically, and Diagonally (wired.co.uk)

An elevator that can move in any direction has been successfully tested by a German company named ThyssenKrupp. An anonymous reader quotes Wired UK: The Multi is the first ropeless lift, built using the same magnetic levitation technology used in Japan's bullet train and proposed for the Hyperloop. In the same way the train slides along a track horizontally, the lift travels both vertically, horizontally and diagonally around a building riding an electromagnetic field, a system known as a linear drive. "If you can run a 500-tonne train on magnets at 500km/h you should be able to elevate a cabin of 500 kilograms or 1,000 kilograms at a speed of five metres per second," [ThyssenKrupp CEO Andreas] Schierenbeck said.
The elevator can cost 3 to 5 times more than a regular elevator -- but can handle higher buildings than a conventional elevator.

Comments

Top-down design

[SkyratesPlayer]

One way to think about elevators and high-rises is to start from the top. The uppermost part is a little building that only needs one elevator. As you add floors on the bottom they need more shafts so that you can fill and empty the building in a reasonable time. With conventional elevators, there is only one per shaft. (Although it can be more than one floor high.) At some point the next bottom floor you add will be all elevator shafts and unless you think you can make money from a more scenic view from the top, you stop. With this tech the elevators become cars on a vertical railway and can take on passengers without blocking shafts. Big gain.

Re:Turn the power off

[necro81]

Exactly. ... but how would you install an emergency breaking system on a (contactless!) Maglev system without seriously restricting the the directions in which this can move? (diagonally...)

Because of the shoddy writing in the article and the summary, I can understand why you would think it's contactless. But it isn't. The similarity with maglev trains and the hyperloop is the fact that it uses a linear motor to move along the track. The elevator car is still affixed to a track/rail and does not levitate. When it needs to go sideways, it does so at specially located switchpoints where it traverses a horizontal track. This would be obvious from reading the articles or, for the short-attention-spanned, watching the embedded videos.