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Virgin Hyperloop One Eyes India For Possible High-Speed Routes (theverge.com)

India is officially being added to the list of nations that have expressed interest in near-supersonic, tube-based travel. Virgin Hyperloop One "signed agreements with the governments of Maharashtra and Karnataka to begin studying the impact of a hyperloop in the region," reports The Verge. "The feasibility studies have implications for India's giant cities like Mumbai and Bangalore, as well as fast-growing urban centers like Pune and Nagpur." From the report: The agreements are signs that despite its lack of a commercial product or human-ready testing, Virgin Hyperloop One has shown a tenacity for securing agreements with willing government partners. The company recently announced 10 winning submissions in a long-running contest to find what it believes to be the best places to build the first hyperloop routes in the world. Ten teams across five countries (Mexico, India, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada) were picked from the original 2,600 submissions, and the routes range in size from about 200 to nearly 700 miles, depending on the location. Virgin Hyperloop One hasn't specified the length of the routes it would build in India -- to be sure, it remains possible that none of these proposed routes get built -- but it did tease some of the possibilities in terms of reduction in travel time. For example, it would take just 14 minutes to travel between Mumbai and the fast-growing city of Pune, a journey that currently takes up to three hours by car. Also, it could look at connecting Nagpur, which is in the easternmost part of Maharashtra, with Mumbai and Pune to vastly improve passenger and freight transportation.

38 comments

  1. Re:Environmental catastrophe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What about Trudeau? He's the champion.

  2. Re:Environmental catastrophe by x0ra · · Score: 0

    I'll take a bet: you live in the city.

    Your whole lifestyle from cheap China crap to your preferred brew to your daily mocha latte from Starfuck to mere food on the shelves of grocery stores rely on one, and only one thing: cheap hydro-carbon energy. You cannot grow/raise your own food at affordable scale without these. So please, keyboard warrior, give us a break.

  3. I can just see it by Snotnose · · Score: 3, Funny

    Indians hopping onto the roof, hanging onto the back, jumping onto the cow catcher. An 80 person car with 300 people on it. This should be fun to watch.

    1. Re:I can just see it by johanw · · Score: 0

      Hey, even captain Janeway fell for that one. :-)

    2. Re:I can just see it by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      Will there be a designated shitting tube?

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  4. Re:Environmental catastrophe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Guess what moron? America is a net exporter of oil, that's what the pipeline is for - getting crude to Texas so it can be sold off as gasoline products for export. This trades our local resources for CORPORATE PROFIT exclusively.

  5. Virgin Hyperloop? by jfdavis668 · · Score: 1

    How long do you think it will remain virgin?

    1. Re:Virgin Hyperloop? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The first train that goes through will deflower the Hyperloop.

    2. Re: Virgin Hyperloop? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Soon to be Running train on sexy bhabi, plz

    3. Re:Virgin Hyperloop? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How long do you think it will remain virgin?

      Not too long if it One-Eyes India.

  6. Re:Environmental catastrophe by x0ra · · Score: 1

    Actually, the Keystone pipeline primary function is to import Canadian oil from Alberta to the US.

  7. Kickbacks FTW by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 2

    >> despite its lack of a commercial product or human-ready testing, Virgin Hyperloop One has shown a tenacity for securing agreements with willing government partners

    Kickbacks FTW. Go government!

  8. Attention! by nsuccorso · · Score: 4, Funny

    To all the nations of the world, Mr and Mrs World Citizen, and all the ships at sea! We have founded a revolutionary new company, HyperLift(C), for the purpose of bringing our revolutionary new space elevator technology to a lonely and space-elevator-less world! HyperLift is looking for ground stations for our new technology, and we are open to your suggestions! Suggestions should take the form of tax credits, municipal bond offerings, private air travel, fine dining, lavish gifts, or best of all, suitcases of cash! For those who have the temerity to doubt our technology, we have a 20 foot scale model and numerous slickly produced videos. Act quickly to avoid being left âoeon the ground floorâ!

  9. What? by kenh · · Score: 3, Insightful

    vastly improve passenger and freight transportation.

    freight? - there must be a better, more cost-effective way to move freight across India, rather than a hyperloop...

    --
    Ken
    1. Re: What? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Perhaps "freight" isnt't the best term? I'd picture it as a large-scale replacement for air mail.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    2. Re: What? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      India isn't exactly small (in land area, it's approx. 4 times the size of Texas), but even run-of-the-mill 200km/h HSR is theoretically fast enough to haul a train nonstop between almost any major city-pair in India in ~16 hours or less.

      The only reason India doesn't ALREADY have HSR (at least, between the outer suburbs of Mumbai & Delhi) is because Indian municipalities have a lot more power than American ones to obstruct federal transportation projects. Every time India tries to move forward with Mumbai-Delhi HSR, the small towns in between screw everything up and kill it.

      As I understand it, in the US, the worst a county opposed to a federal transportation project can do is refuse to contribute a cent towards it, and maybe throw a few lawsuits at it challenging the validity of the studies justifying it. If the feds want to build a road badly enough, they can cough up the cash themselves, acquire ROW via eminent domain, and build it anyway. I believe that in India, an uncooperative state government could *literally* block a federal transportation project indefinitely as a matter of right.

    3. Re: What? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      air mail?

      the reason freight is mentioned, is that there aren't that many people who would be willing to pay more for a tube journey than air. it's touted as freight for something that needs to go fast. also if you just had the tube full of carriages you could have a fair amount of freight moving.

      however, for anything that doesn't need to be there super quick, a regular train does the job at a fraction of the cost, especially in India where train is still cheaper than trucks(unlike some western countries).

      the reason hyperloop themselves want these agreements that mean nothing in reality is purely just to gain investor confidence. of course it would be much easier to do that if they just made an actual prototype and not a toy set. an actual proof of concept route - had an actual carriage design and build, had an actual design for the auxiliary components needed to keep the tube depressurized.

      right now it would just be cheaper to make trains that go stupid fast in a mesh tube. 300 km/h. just fit a tube of mesh around the tracks. so much cheaper than the hyperloop and almost as good - the cheapness would account for the supposedly higher energy use to keep it moving 300km/h - for shorter trips you don't need to accelerate and decelerate as much anyways and it's almost as good if not better than the hyperloop concept.

      the hyperloop project is stupid because they took a hundred year old idea and touted it as a new idea without first checking if we had actual tech improvements already to make it feasible and economical - none of that stuff was done.

    4. Re: What? by plopez · · Score: 1

      "forward with Mumbai-Delhi HSR, the small towns in between *prevent their citizens from being screwed* and kill it."

      Fixed that for you. Hope it helps.

      --
      putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
    5. Re:What? by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Why? Unmanned containers moved through a hyperloop sounds like a nice improvement over pneumatic tubes.
      Why driving parcels with trucks when you have a hyperloop? Thinking about alibaba prime ...

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    6. Re:What? by nospam007 · · Score: 1

      "freight? - there must be a better, more cost-effective way to move freight across India, rather than a hyperloop..."

      You mean because of their many fantastic free- and highways?

    7. Re: What? by nospam007 · · Score: 1

      "the reason freight is mentioned, is that there aren't that many people who would be willing to pay more for a tube journey than air."

      Other than the couple of hundred millions Indians afraid of flying you mean?

  10. Re:Environmental catastrophe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You're truncating because you're dishonest. It's for Canadian CRUDE to the US for refinement into other products and shipping out to end buyers, not the US consumer.

  11. Uh-oh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I hope this hyperloop that is never going to be built in India doesn't crash into that other hyperloop that is never going to be built in India!

  12. Brilliant by argStyopa · · Score: 4, Informative

    Build a boutique, experimental (dangerous as fuck*) transport system in a country where things like clean water, sanitation, basic education, and electricity are still not a "given" for a billion people.

    *Think I'm wrong? https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    Jesus wept.

    A friend worked for large multinational firewall vendor, as the primary tech sales lead for S & SE Asia. He said that he could hardly bear it, slogging into some shitville city to install $100,000+ firewall equipment in some school building, where the power cables were literally lying in the mud in the street, trailing in the door, and running to what looked like a birdnest of a power box.
    Oh, and it wasn't infrequent that they were installing firewalls on government contracts WHERE THERE WAS NO SERVER TO PROTECT ("Yet!" said the local government functionary, optimistically).

    --
    -Styopa
    1. Re:Brilliant by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Wow, your tech jobs are outsorced to Insia.
      And you think: they have no education, universities, electricity ... and more shocking is you think they have more than a billion inhabitants.

      Nince anecdote, though.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    2. Re:Brilliant by argStyopa · · Score: 1

      http://lmgtfy.com/?q=populatio...

      Population of India: 1.324 billion.

      Average income India:
      "India's per capita income (nominal) was Rs7,593 in 2013, ranked at 112th out of 164 countries by the World Bank, while its per capita income on purchasing power parity (PPP) basis was US$5,350, and ranked 106th."

      Electrification:
      http://www.hindustantimes.com/...
      "In 2 years, BJP govt electrified 13523 villages; only 8% were completely electrified
      As of May 25, 2017, 13,523 villages have been electrified, but 100% household connectivity has been achieved in only 1,089 villages"

      Clean Water:
      "In 2008, 88% of the population in India had access to an improved water source, but only 31% had access to improved sanitation. In rural areas, where 72% of India's population lives, the respective shares are 84% for water and only 21% for sanitation"

      Maybe check these facts BEFORE you try to reply?

      --
      -Styopa
    3. Re:Brilliant by philmarcracken · · Score: 1

      If that video isn't thunderfoot I'll eat my hat. Hey, look at that, it is him

      https://www.reddit.com/r/Futur...

    4. Re:Brilliant by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Oh, last time I checked they had 880millions.

      The other facts we did not discuss.

      The average income is irrelevant, as it is related to the cost of living. Purchasing Parity is unfortunately often not correct, so no idea how it is in this case :D

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  13. Again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This gets kind of tiresome. All this company does is constantly go to the media about "another possible route" for what I assume is more funding. Their tech sucks and their company sucks. Student pod competitions were more impressive.

  14. 860 per hour isn't a lot of people. by 91degrees · · Score: 1

    I'm sure it would be cheaper to have a fleet of A380's and the infrastructure for them than building this for the longer distances. They can handle the same number of people in a single flight (all economy configuration), and have the capacity for several more. For the shorter distances, high speed rail has 10 times the capacity.

    The technology is interesting but I'm sceptical about the business case.

  15. Is it lost on people by cmaurand · · Score: 1

    That current airliner technology is also near supersonic. Most airliners run at about .8 or .9 mach. I like the idea of the tubes, Speed doesn't generally cause accidents, but it increases the severity of the damage they do to living and other things.

  16. INDIA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A bunch of stupid Indians will just climb on top of the hyperloop, or will stand in the tube and expect it to stop in time.

    1. Re:INDIA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Poo in the loop?

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