Elon Musk doesn’t stop. In addition to confirming the purchase of Twitter yesterday (25), another company of the billionaire also made an important announcement on the same day. The Boring Company has revealed that it will resume the hyperloop tunnel project – and the first will be tested later this year.
Hyperloop testing at full-scale begins later this year.
— The Boring Company (@boringcompany) April 25, 2022
The hyperloop is a transport system that has not yet come to fruition since its conception by Musk himself, in 2013. Basically, it works like a vacuum tube, in which people are transported in electric pods at speeds that exceed 965 km/ H.
After many ups and downs, the project looks like it will finally get off the ground after a $675 million investment in a round of investment last week.
trial and error
According to Musk himself, his inspiration for creating the hyperloop was the California High-Speed Rail, a rail system that is expected to be ready in 2029. According to Musk, the Californian bullet train will be more expensive and less secure than the concept he developed himself.
In 2013, Musk published a document with almost 60 pages explaining in detail the concept of the hyperloop, specifying that it would be the ideal solution for distances smaller than 1,500 km (a trip from Rio de Janeiro to Porto Alegre, approximately).
As of this document, several engineering companies have tried funding to be part of the project, but to no avail. Not even the giant Virgin could handle the message.
Then, between 2015 and 2019, SpaceX, also owned by Elon Musk, began holding an annual competition for students and anyone else interested to develop a working prototype of the hyperloop. Once again, nothing came of it.
In 2021, the project was once again moved by the Boring Company, once again with a competition for students, but this time with the challenge of creating tunnel machines for transport. The University of Munich created the most accurate guidance system and was the fastest to complete the tunnel with a driving surface.
