Elon Musk to publish hyperloop design by August

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/356776740409974785

by tcoppi • 13 years ago

293 166 13 years ago

drpgq2• 13 years ago

I'm always surprised that more billionaires don't try interesting off the wall projects when they have so much money. What's the fun of having it, if you can't have the occasional mad scientist moment.

dfxm12• 13 years ago

The intersection of billionaires and people with the ability to try interesting, off the wall projects probably isn't very big.

papercrane• 13 years ago

I was just thinking, it's probably true that most people who try interesting off the wall projects don't become incredibly wealthy.

rorrr22• 13 years ago

I'm more surprised that more billionaires don't build crazy monuments of themselves or just some crazy ones with their name on it.

Shivetya• 13 years ago

sadly that is what politicians do.

as to billionaires and there use of money, I am more than happy how some of them turned their fortune into good use. the most obvious being Gates.

JamesArgo• 13 years ago

This was pretty common behaviour in Rome.

swamp403• 13 years ago

You mean like Sheikh Hamad Bin Hamdan Al Ahyan: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2016841/Al-Futaysi-i...

podperson2• 13 years ago

One of North Korea's major exports is, apparently, giant statues of people.

E.g. (sorry it's a WSJ link...)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870390620457502...

lifeformed• 13 years ago

I hope all billionaires look at Batman for inspiration.

wissler2• 13 years ago

It's rare that the creative types end up being billionaires. Note that even Steve Jobs was kicked out of his own company, and then later only barely squeaked into the CEO slot, and only because the company was about dead anyway. He'd never have gotten the job if Skulley hadn't screwed things up quite so bad.

moomin2• 13 years ago

Yes, although I feel the need to point out Jobs wasn't the genius behind Apple in the early years, it was Wozniak. Different time, different man.

qwertzlcoatl• 13 years ago

Maybe they want to own a building for each one of their childrens children.

dm22• 13 years ago

Here's one: http://www.vice.com/read/russian-billionaire-dmitry-itskov-p...

Anyone have a list of billionaire futurists?

whatusername• 13 years ago

In Australia we have Clive Palmer. He's building a replica Titanic and a mechatronic Jurassic Park. And now has his own Political party named after himself with candidates in every seat in the country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Palmer_(businessman)

joonix• 13 years ago

I don't see how these projects serve humanity.

cpeterso• 13 years ago

Science fiction author David Brin has some interesting suggestions for philanthropists looking to create a legacy, such as building a third-world university system, financing a freelance manned mission to Mars, or funding whistleblowers.

http://www.davidbrin.com/eon.html

robinwarren• 13 years ago

For anyone wondering what this is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperloop

apendleton3• 13 years ago

Or rather, wondering what it might be; nobody knows for sure yet except Musk.

swamp403• 13 years ago

Honestly, the wiki link doesn't give any details on how it works.

That's why this announcement is big news.

non-sense2• 13 years ago

Classy! https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/356779314043305985

"I really hate patents unless critical to company survival. Will publish Hyperloop as open source."

onebaddude• 13 years ago

"I really hate patents unless critical to company survival"

Isn't "critical to company survival" the same defensive argument that every patent holder uses?

ThomPete• 13 years ago

Yes but most of them are wrong.

kiba• 13 years ago

SpaceX don't patent anything because they thought the Chinese would steal their technologies using the patents itself.

It's a different story for Tesla Motors, though.

non-sense2• 13 years ago

In this case he has promised: "Will publish Hyperloop as open source." I didn't see a catch here.

In the same context, SpaceX have not applied for many patents when compared to the work they are doing. However in this case the prime motive could be keep the tech secret.

mikeash• 13 years ago

Certainly not. There are many different arguments for patents, most of which just boil down to "I deserve to be compensated for the work I put in to inventing this."

arbuge• 13 years ago

Certainly the patent trolls could argue that patents are essential to their patent troll company survival...

fnordfnordfnord• 13 years ago

It's a tweet. Expect it to be an abbreviated incomplete answer.

mhartl• 13 years ago

Many companies use patents as a matter of course, whether it's critical to their business or not.

alexvr• 13 years ago

It is classy and awesome, but don't forget that he can afford to be classy and awesome. (Everyone knows he's the inventor, and he's got the people and capital to make it happen before anyone else... not that that is necessarily his goal.)

Can't wait to see it.

georgemcbay• 13 years ago

I hate most patents as well, but given that we've recently switched to a "first to file" system here in the US, if this has patentable components (which it seems like it would) it would probably be prudent for him to file patents on it (at least within the one year grace period after disclosing the system in public), even if just to turn around and do some sort of public promise not to enforce.

Of course, I'm sure he's well aware of these issues.

Dylan168072• 13 years ago

First to file only matters when someone invents in secret. Public is public, won't that block any other patent attempts?

nicktelford2• 13 years ago

If this is, as it sounds, a new public transport system, it surprises me a little that he would prefer to develop it in the US.

Attitudes towards public transport in general seem more favourable in the EU, Japan, China and South Korea.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but I imagine getting such a system built in the EU (for example) would be easier than the US. Then again, Musk has been building a reputation with law-makers in the US for some time, so that might count for a lot.

_mulder_• 13 years ago

European attitudes to public transport are certainly more receptive than those in the US. However, European attitudes to big infrastructure projects are a lot more NIMBYish. Asia could be good but then they are quite advanced with high-speed public transport anyways.

Plus, Elon doesn't live in Europe or Asia, so why would he?

Symmetry• 13 years ago

Europeans have problems with NIMBY, but not nearly to the extent that the US does. It takes about 1/5 as much money to construct a mile of track in France as in the US, and 1/10 in Spain. My guess is that part of the point of the Hyperloop is to get around land use restrictions by going over them, and the largest payoff for that would be in the US where conventional land-based transport is hardest.

rdouble3• 13 years ago

He lives in the US so it's odd that you're surprised.

shawabawa3• 13 years ago

I would think a big motivation is that he personally wants to be able to go from LA to SF in 30mins. He probably spends a lot of his time flying around the US

ceejayoz• 13 years ago

Attitudes towards public transport in general seem more favourable in the EU, Japan, China and South Korea.

As a result, they aren't in as desperate need of public transport as the US.

potatolicious• 13 years ago

I feel like Musk is positioning not as an alternative to HSR. He's positioning this to shoot even one level higher - this can unseat air travel.

After all, at a reported 1000km/h speed, it would be faster than a Boeing 737 or Airbus A320, the typical modern transcontinental aircrafts around the world.

Why tackle a meager market of medium-distance routes (realistic for HSR) when you can kill off airlines entirely?

The talk about LA-SF in half an hour sounds only like phase 1 of a much more ambitious plan.

jvm2• 13 years ago

I think he specifically wants California to build this instead of wasting $100bn on the HSR project. I'm sure he'll be open to building hyperloops elsewhere as well.

the_watcher• 13 years ago

If he can stop California from lighting that $100bn on fire chasing HSR from Bakersfield to Fresno, then this will all be worth it. I voted against all of those propositions, but I'd have reconsidered if you told me Musk would be the one playing with the money.

Laremere2• 13 years ago

I think US's opinions about public transportation is based on rational comparison. Taking the bus takes more time than taking a car, and is a less desirable environment. Our train system is optimized for freight, and has no cost or time benefit over just driving. Countries which have high amounts of public transportation tend to have higher gas prices and population density. It becomes more cost and time effective in that case to take public transportation. If this hyper-tube system takes off, it could really be a game changer. Even with a high cost, the transportation speed is really desirable, especially if you don't need to go through the routine that you need to go through at airports before you even get on the plane. If the cost becomes comparable or cheaper than airplanes, then it becomes cheaper and more convenient to take the hyper tube than driving or flying. Americans understand the language of time and money, and that would change their opinion very quickly.

notahacker• 13 years ago

Rational comparison or desirability of environments would take into account the likelihood of an hour on a decent bus allowing you to get more done (or more sleep) than 45 minutes of focusing attention on the car in front of you...

mjs• 13 years ago

Why announce the publication date in advance? It's not like he needs to disrupt anyone else's futuristic transport plan announcement.

rdouble3• 13 years ago

Maybe to apply social pressure to himself to get it done by that date.

swamp403• 13 years ago

Probably some combination of:

a) He's getting asked a lot.

b) By publicly announcing a deadline, everyone involved (including him) will be racing to hit that deadline or lose face.

c) He's telling the world "I say what I do and I do what I say".

JunkDNA2• 13 years ago

There was that recent PR article that made the rounds here last week from some company allegedly developing an evacuated tube based system that was written in a way to imply they were working on Musk's idea. I would not at all be surprised if he's a little miffed about that and has decided to just get everything out there.

Given that they may not actually be working on what he specifically has in mind, there is a risk that his idea gets a bad connotation if someone implements something similar (but not identical) and does it poorly. There is a whole political dimension to this in terms of getting zoning, approvals, etc... and the last thing he needs is for it to be stillborn because a bunch of politicians hear it "was tried and failed".

hankcharles2• 13 years ago

is this the company you are referring to? http://www.et3.com/

bemol• 13 years ago

It also helps that two major accidents happened recently.

salimmadjd• 13 years ago

Every startup entrepreneur should learn image making and PR from Musk. For someone who is not very eloquent and a bit tongue-tied he has done an amazing job to become known as the premier visionaries of our time.

This also includes making changes to his physical appearance by looking at his old images [1], [2] as well his name brand.

[1] http://www.stepbrother.co.za/images/musk2.jpg

[2] http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18p2ht1rsfinyjpg/ku-xlarge.j...

edit: line breaks added

tocomment5• 13 years ago

wow, how did he change his appearance so much?

temp453463343• 13 years ago

Rogain

gamegoblin• 13 years ago

I think a pretty big one is he appears to be working out regularly, now. Probably a better diet, get some sun, etc.

rdouble3• 13 years ago

He lives in LA instead of Silicon Valley.

X43• 13 years ago

More hair, more tan, more money, more sex, more training. That's the formula I guess.

nsxwolf• 13 years ago

I had no idea he had a hair transplant. It looks very nice.

aroman• 13 years ago

Wow, those "old" seem as if they were taken 10-15 years in the future.

I wonder if in fact, as you're suggesting, his changes in appearance were intended as a means of improving his public figure, rather than his health and subjective appearance.

jmacd• 13 years ago

Wow, did he get hair plugs?

silenteh• 13 years ago

and this is a more recent one http://instagram.com/p/bwS-1Iwr2e/#

This is another example of what pg meant with his last essay.

cma• 13 years ago

This is my guess:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6040206

Rather than maintain a vacuum hundreds of miles wide, why not just ride along the vacuum that occurs along a very low frequency soundwave (low frequency enough that the wavelength is larger than the vehicle).

To visualize: http://profmattstrassler.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/wavegas...

Since this wave would be going the speed of sound, that could be what he meant by comparing it to a Concord.

And since a pressure wave isn't exactly like wind (it would just pass through the vehicle), there would need to be some kind of propulsion that could get the thing going fast and occasionally maintain speed (e.g. the railgun and PV solar part of his idea).

I can see many ways to work in the air-hockey portion from his hints which would avoid the cost of mag-lev.. but who knows exactly what approach he will take there...

tocomment5• 13 years ago

That's a great idea! Wouldn't an underground tunnel be really expensive?

X43• 13 years ago

Let's bet whose idea comes closest, oh guess that's illegal in the USA and I don't bet anyway :) But betting for fun is legal right (seriously)?

my idea: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6046134

@cma's idea: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6046081

...

steffan• 13 years ago

The air-hockey element is most likely implemented as a cushion of air around all sides of a vehicle inside a tube - this would explain the "crash-proof" assertion. It would provide near-frictionless travel as well as preventing vehicle-tube collisions.

curveship• 13 years ago

That's really interesting. I wonder if the vehicle could effectively "surf" the back wave for propulsion -- higher pressure behind, lower pressure in front pushes the vehicle forward enough to overcome whatever low friction is involved. With an external system both for getting up to speed and in case it "falls off the wave."

X43• 13 years ago

I think I know what it could be, comments?

An electric hovercraft design without tires and without a fan, but driven by one large/many small linear or stepper motors that build-up and fire Electromagnetic pulses or compressed Air to build thrust.

When he said hyperloop I pictured a normal road with large Metal loops (induction) every mile with smart-meters tracking how much energy you consumed and charging your bank for that amount. Do you remember the games where you have to drive over the yellow arrows to speed up? The same principle.

..still inefficient, even though it's pretty creative and more efficient than all current implementation of car and infrastructure design.

before you ask, yes I know a much more efficient way, but it's useless to explain here, because nobody will listen anyway.

swalsh2• 13 years ago

I love that you just made up all the details to his idea, and then discredited it... and then said you know a better way, but assumed no one would listen.

dasloop2• 13 years ago

Being cynical: promoting a futuristic tech to block the development of the proposed high speed rail.

jlgreco3• 13 years ago

There are certainly less round-about ways of doing that than getting HN excited by dropping vague hints about a future project every few months.

hankcharles2• 13 years ago

more than likely a big part of his motivation, but considering how bad an investment the current plan is, it is very prudent.

omni• 13 years ago

If you have any evidence that Elon Musk of all people is deserving of such cynicism, I genuinely would like to see it.

dasloop2• 13 years ago

I was cynical in a general way. A no sense without any evidence. Apologies for that.

drgath2• 13 years ago

Considering most voters (57%) disapprove of the high-speed rail project, it sounds like he'd be doing Californians a favor.

http://www.wnyc.org/blogs/transportation-nation/2013/mar/28/...

schiffern6• 13 years ago

The idea for the Hyperloop grew out of the terrible (slowest and most expensive per mile) CA HSR, so yeah.

ianstallings• 13 years ago

Musk is the modern day inventor/businessman of old.

This project has to be the most impactful thing on my life he has proposed and I welcome it with open arms. Paypal was smart, Tesla is cool, Space X is plain bad a^^, but this could change everything. Coast to coast in hours, half hour from NY to DC. And it could make it much cheaper than air travel due to less energy usage overall.

wellboy• 13 years ago

I like the way you censored a^^ with a happy face. I will use that from now on :)

swalsh2• 13 years ago

Things like this are what happen when you get someone who knows how to make things happen, but also has the intelligence training and experience of a senior engineer.

netcan• 13 years ago

When I read PG's essay earlier today, I thought of hyperloop when I read this footnote:

"There may even be an inverse correlation between launch magnitude and success. The only launches I remember are famous flops like the Segway and Google Wave. Wave is a particularly alarming example, because I think it was actually a great idea that was killed partly by its overdone launch."

I can actually recall the launch of some things that succeeded (ipad & iphone, for example). Still, this reminds me in some way of Wave. When wave was launching there was a lot of hyperbolic explanations by people who didn't seem to understand what they were describing. realtime collaboration-communication hybrid that's really more of a cloud based protocol than a app. The app itself is just a proof of concept People either didn't get it or made unlikely assumptions about what it was.

Something about all this excitement pre-reveal feels wrong to me. Especially since this sounds like such a big, long term project.

abstractbill• 13 years ago

Though I think pg's advice is exactly right for things that don't need to be started with a big bang, I don't think it applies universally. I can't imagine, for example, the Apollo Program being successful without rallying a huge number of people behind the idea beforehand.

Dylan168072• 13 years ago

I have not seen a single mention of hyperloop outside a couple articles on HN. Are you sure there's a lot of hype? Where is it?

tocomment5• 13 years ago

Is anyone still thinking it might be a launch loop?

schiffern6• 13 years ago

I'm in, given that it's the only way to beat the insane right-of-way costs for a transport system in California with a ~20 km turning radius.

Turing_Machine• 13 years ago

I don't know about California in specific, but in the United States as a whole there is plenty of existing and unused/lightly used railroad right of way. Cut a deal with the railroads (most of whom are very, very hungry for cash/investment) and you've got transcontinental capability without needing any eminent domain proceedings or similar obstacles.

InclinedPlane2• 13 years ago

A launch loop doesn't make sense, it's too risky (from a business sense) for this sort of project and too expensive too.

Also, the obvious use of a launch loop is for launch, of course. Why serve a market where prices are cents per kilogram when you can serve a market where prices are hundreds of dollars per kilo? And with less capital investment too.

tocomment5• 13 years ago

True, but maybe he needs a smaller scale, proof of principle launch loop before building a larger, faster? one for actual launching.

hnhater• 13 years ago

It'll work like the water system... efficiency from using gigantic pumps, safety from having so much distributed force that a problem in any point can't bleed off enough power to endanger the system.

It'll be a closed loop where the pumps take air from holes in the top of one end and push it through holes in the bottom of the other end. The holes will be spaced so that the upward-pushing force decreases over the loop as the upward-pulling force increases. This creates a slow acceleration at the beginning of the loop and a slow deceleration at the end of the loop. Some mechanical system will move cars from the end of the loop to the beginning (since there is no air force there). The speed at any given point is determined by how many of the up/down holes are behind/before the car, so speed in the center is incredibly fast.

The idea is pretty simple, it's just a matter of getting enough funding for the execution since the entire system must be constructed before any returns. Patents are a non-issue since you need government involvement to do it (even Musk isn't going to get a $6 billion loan on an unproved idea with unknown liability, need to get land rights, etc).

zefhous• 13 years ago

Here's a description of the closest guess Elon has seen so far.

https://twitter.com/John_Gardi/status/356798172842049536

michaelbuckbee• 13 years ago

To save someone else digging through 4 layers of Twitter/Twitpic attribution and "full size" buttons:

http://twitpic.com/cw4pqb/full

fakename• 13 years ago

of course it's in comic sans

PavlovsCat• 13 years ago

That looks like a more elaborate version of something I thought of as a kid, which was basically a vacuum tube going all around the world (one big torus if you will) with carts on super conductive magnets. I was thinking mainly of connecting Tokyo and New York and some place or other in Europe. Cart drives into the station, station gets sealed off and air pumped into it, then passengers leave and board, the doors get closed and the station sealed, then the thing speeds off at a gazillion miles per hour. Yay! Of course you'd have to start braking long before arrival, but the idea wasn't really about saving time (I could not possibly have anticipated how pampered and stupid grown ups are), it was mostly about saving energy, the idea of near zero friction just fascinated me. Though I was never sure if cooling the magnets and keeping the vacuum up wouldn't be more expensive than the energy saved.

But all that aside: bleh to passengers, think freight! If it's too complicated for people, because they won't use it if it takes as long as taking a plane... even though being a passenger on just one airplane ride is like riding a fat car for a whole year (give or take, it's nuts either way)... then automate it and use it for cargo. Especially since in that case and for a lot of products the vacuum wouldn't matter, the cargo could just ride in open carts and get picked up by robotic arms. Heck, you might even just throw it on while it's moving, and even use hooks to get cargo off without stopping the cart at all. This might seem too tricky... until you realize what marvels are going on in a bog standard HD these days, right? (though I remember a similar invention for passenger buses from MAD Magazine: something about spring-loaded seats haha)

dm22• 13 years ago

Is it an enclosed tube or just a special road that cars float on?

nicktelford2• 13 years ago

Enclosed tunnel: "air column" is a give-away.

This is essentially a vac-train, except instead of a vacuum, the air in the tube is propelled along with the pod.

There will be friction, but only between the air and the inside of the tube. I imagine there'll need to be some kind of "repeaters" to counter-act energy loss, but with so little loss, they could probably be solar-powered; which I think Elon alluded to.

otibom• 13 years ago

If you really want a fast transport system you need not only speed, but low latency. If you need to queue for 15 minutes while you wait for other people to get in, then it's gonna feel like boarding a plane : time wasted. What's really needed here is parallel loading of passengers into individual pods. But then you need a tube switch and multiple tubes and doors and throughways.

tocomment5• 13 years ago

Neat idea but I just don't see how it's cheaper than a high speed rail project?

apendleton3• 13 years ago

Agreed -- seems like you'd have higher construction costs, higher energy requirements, and similar right-of-way concerns.

dkrich• 13 years ago

My only guess on this is max capacity. Theoretically if the tube were large enough you could run a few of these a day and carry thousands of people on each one. If you can get the energy consumed per passenger way down, then costs may decrease and a ticket could be much less expensive.

If you could travel hundreds of miles in a half hour, you might make a lot more trips. Changing the cost structure and timing dramatically would change the way people think about long distance travel from something you do once in a while to being as common as going across town for an afternoon.

Obviously this is all far-fetched given today's technology, but I'm just letting myself daydream.

aetherson• 13 years ago

I agree -- I don't think that any kind of tunnel or tube approach can be done more cheaply than HSR. And I venture to predict that if it is a tunnel or tube concept, it won't succeed in linking LA and SF.

That said, if we take Musk at something close to face value, it has a major advantage that the HSR doesn't: it would be faster than the air route. That would give it at least a fighting chance to draw extremely high ridership and make up for high costs with high revenue.

And if the idea is basically sound, but the implementation is impractical on the SF-LA corridor, then it could be put into use in some other intercity connection with more favorable terrain and lower land costs.

schiffern6• 13 years ago

"Closest", so we know that's not the whole story.

It looks a lot like a schematic Lofstrom (launch) loop. Just replace the rotor with air.

Elon Musk to publish hyperloop design by August

Related Stories