By Eric Johnson
Aug. 13, 2013—When I first heard Elon Musk speak, at a 2006 green-tech summit held at Cavallo Point, overlooking the Golden Gate, I had the same experience everyone does: I was stunned by his audacity.
The conference, organized by Tony Perkins of the elite AlwaysOn network, drew the heads of dozens of established companies and startups, plus senior players from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Morgan Stanley, etc. I interviewed a lot of people that day, for an article titled The Green Gold Rush. All of them were talking about big, world-changing stuff, convinced that we were witnessing the birth of a new economy. In a nutshell, they were talking about saving the world and making billions of dollars by doing it.
That was nothing. Elon Musk took it a big step further. He talked about an electric roadster fast as a Ferrari. He promised that his rocketship company, SpaceX, would achieve orbit within a few years. (Done and done.) He then shared his opinion that it is humanity’s destiny to migrate beyond the earth, to colonize unknown worlds.
As he spoke I found myself looking around the room, checking the facial expressions of the gathered high-tech industrialists and financiers. Nobody blinked. And thinking back, believe it or not, this guy made even space colonization sound like a plausible goal. (The alternative, after all, is ultimately extinction.)
I probably don't need to tell you I found yesterday’s announcement, that Musk has committed the initial design of an 800-mph pod-car tube that will allow us to get from San Francisco to LA in a half hour using zero outside energy sources for 20 bucks (!)—and do so for one-tenth the cost of the already-in-development High Speed Rail project—entirely credible. If anyone is capable of creating a brand new mode of mass transportation, Elon Musk is.
Forbes put it this way: “When a guy has already made billions, launched rockets into space, and created a profitable electric-vehicle manufacturer, even the wackiest thing he has to say is likely to get a lot of attention.”
But here’s the thing: It isn’t wacky. I would bet money that if you read the first seven pages of Musk’s Hyperloop alpha documentation, the part that’s written in plain English, you will agree that this is a thing that can be done.
Fast Facts
The Hyperloop uses existing technologies, including some pioneered by Tesla and SpaceX. One major innovation is an electric turbo compressor mounted on the front of each car that pulls air to the back and propels the pod. (This apparently solves “nature’s top-speed law” for pod-tube cars, the “Kantrowitz limit,” which is explained in the Alpha doc for my fellow science geeks.)
“[It's] the same kind of AC induction motor on the Model S,” Musk says. “We could just use some version of the Model S motors, or a few of them in series, and a Model S battery pack.”
Another innovation: the Tesla motor pumps air through a pair of skis made out of a metal used by both Tesla and SpaceX, which would be fitted out with electromagnets.
“The linear motor would electromagnetically accelerate the pod,” Musk says. “It would be just below where the skis are. It just creates an electromagnetic pulse that travels along the tube and pushes the pod to that initial velocity of 800 miles per hour.
“Air bearings,” Musk writes, “which use the same basic principle as an air hockey table, have been demonstrated to work at speeds of Mach 1.1 with very low friction.”
Bloomberg Businessweek yesterday spoke with Martin Simon, a professor of physics at UCLA, who confirmed that the Hyperloop is doable.
"Simon points out that the acceleration methods proposed by Musk are used at amusement parks to get a roller coaster going. Other companies have looked at these techniques for passenger and freight vehicles. What sets the Hyperloop apart, though, is the use of the air cushion to levitate the pods. 'He has separated the air cushion and the linear induction drive, and that seems new,' Simon says, adding, 'It would be cool if they had transparent tubes.'"
As for the economics, Businessweek, which broke the story and interviewed Musk for the article posted yesterday, reports that the project would cost way, way less than High Speed Rail.
“The [California HSR] authority proposes spending nearly $70 billion over the next 16 years to provide a roughly $200 round-trip that takes 2 hours and 40 minutes each way between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Musk wants to cut the cost of building by 90% and take the time down to 30 minutes.” Elsewhere Musk says the Hyperloop is profitable with a $20 ticket price, and could be completed in seven years—although he’s too busy to build it.
“I wish I had not mentioned it,” he’s told Businessweek. “I still have to run SpaceX and Tesla, and it’s fucking hard.”
Video: Musk first described his Hyperloop idea last July in an interview with Sarah Lacy of PandoDaily:
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