The American Hyperloop company has gone bankrupt. Founded seven years ago, it garnered global attention and raised $500 million, but never delivered a usable technology or even built a single route. Eventually, their lack of progress led to the loss of patience from Middle Eastern investors.
With the closure of this prominent company, the United States, through its vacuum levitation train technology, has bypassed the era of high-speed trains and shattered the dream of achieving super-high-speed trains with speeds exceeding a thousand kilometers per hour. The dream of traveling from San Francisco to Los Angeles in half an hour now seems temporarily unattainable.
While Hyperloop One was not the only company in the super high-speed rail sector, it was the largest and one of the very few that invested heavily to turn Hyperloop super high-speed rail technology into practical test projects. Their closure suggests that Hyperloop technology may face a temporary setback.
It needs to be emphasized that ordinary readers often mistakenly believe that Hyperloop One is Elon Musk's company, but Hyperloop One is not founded by Musk, and the closure of this company is unrelated to him. It is just because Hyperloop, the future super-high-speed rail technology, was conceived and refined by Musk, that it became widely known.
Compared to traditional high-speed railways and maglev trains, Hyperloop capsules operate within a relatively vacuum-sealed tube, significantly reducing air resistance, achieving low-energy consumption, enabling 24/7 operation, and theoretically reaching speeds of over 1,000 kilometers per hour. Furthermore, because the track is completely enclosed, there are no collisions due to external factors, and it is not affected by weather conditions.
If this speed is achieved, the journey from Los Angeles to San Francisco and from New York to Washington would only take 30 minutes, which is four times the speed of regular high-speed railways and nearly twice the speed of jet airliners. This exciting vision has captured everyone's attention. If Hyperloop technology becomes a reality, the United States would effectively skip the era of traditional high-speed trains and enter a new era of super-high-speed transportation.
Are Americans really willing to take high-speed trains? Certainly, the demand for convenient travel is something that all people desire. A survey from 2015 showed that over two-thirds of Americans said they would be willing to take high-speed trains if they saved time and the prices were reasonable.
Although the United States is vast and sparsely populated, the population is concentrated in several major metropolitan areas on the East and West coasts, making high-speed rail viable. While Amtrak's Acela Express is not a true high-speed rail system, it carries over 2 million passengers annually, and in 2016, it even exceeded 3.4 million passengers during peak times.
It seems that the United States is still several years away from the completion of its first high-speed rail line. As for Hyperloop super-high-speed rail? It may remain a beautiful dream for now.