Hyperloop!

[Penumbra]

Elon Musk, who has brought you fine things such as Paypal, SpaceX, and Tesla Motors, has been releasing hints about a speculative transportation technology for a long time now, and today he finally released the alpha designs.

You can read about Hyperloop here on the Tesla Motors blog, where he has a PDF report on it.

Basically, Musk was angry that California was proposing to build a $60+ billion train system that would be among the highest cost per mile and among the slowest of high speed trains in the world. He doesn't think the home of Silicon Valley, and the NASA lab responsible for putting the Curiosity rover on Mars, should have such a technologically embarrassing, government-subsidized, project.

Instead, he proposes Hyperloop, which some of his experts at SpaceX and Tesla Motors have been doing preliminary designs for. According to his estimates, it costs $6 billion to build the system between San Francisco and Los Angeles, which is 1/10th the price of the current train proposal. It would travel over 700mph, covering the 350 mile distance in a half hour, and the ticket price would be a fraction of the cost of the train ticket or what gas for a car for that trip would cost. Musk doesn't plan on working on it much himself; instead he published the idea to the world, and has specifically requested feedback from experts around the world, so that it can be optimized.

The basic idea is:

-Steel tubes are supported by poles 100 feet apart between the cities. This is better than track on the ground because less land space is needed and it doesn't disrupt farmers. It's all elevated. Plus, the tubes can be made off-site and then easily installed on-site. There are dampeners on each of these poles/pylons to adjust for thermal expansion and ground changes. The tubes will have some internal tracks that use some SpaceX metal which is optimized for heat.

-There is low air pressure inside the long stretch of tubing. Not a vacuum, because that would be too difficult, but very low air pressure. This reduces friction, using current compressor technology.

-There are individual aluminum cars carrying 28 people, with a compressor on the front which draws in air and then redirects it around itself so that it can nearly float in the tube off the tracks with reduced friction much like a hockey puck floats on an air hockey table. It's important to draw the air in from the front so that it doesn't create the syringe-effect where you end up trying to push all of the air in front of you. Plus, since the car pushes air against the tube rather than the tube pushing air against the car, it allows the tubing itself to be really cheap.

-The car accelerates via magnetic force generated from electric motors, but doesn't require all that much force due to the low pressure and only needs boosts every 70 miles or so after the initial gradual acceleration from the station.

-There would be solar panels on top of the whole tube, so that it powers itself.

-There's also a slightly larger option for $10 billion where you can drive you car onto one of the units and then sit in it during the half-hour ride.

I think it'll be interesting to see if this goes anywhere. His previous projects generally all have.

 

[Revoltingest]

Tesla is successful, but only with government subsidies.
Tesla's Success Is the Result of Politics and Subsidies - Economic Intelligence (usnews.com)
I seriously doubt that the hyperloop would be as simple as envisioned. I can imagine a host of niggling problems:
- Access to cars stranded within a tube
- Energy losses due to massive compressor & vacuum pumps
- Security concerns
But who knows....it could work in some form.

 

[Penumbra]

Tesla is successful, but only with government subsidies.
Tesla's Success Is the Result of Politics and Subsidies - Economic Intelligence (usnews.com)

He's creating cars with new technology and no pre-made infrastructure. All gas-powered cars already have gas-station infrastructure in place and are relying on ancient engine technology. Tesla's gone further with electric cars than others have and didn't have any initial charging infrastructure to work with.

Government subsidies are great when they go to a good use. A $60 billion slow train is probably not a good use. An increasingly efficient electrical automobile probably is.

I seriously doubt that the hyperloop would be as simple as envisioned. I can imagine a host of niggling problems:
- Access to cars stranded within a tube
- Energy losses due to massive compressor & vacuum pumps
- Security concerns
But who knows....it could work in some form.

I don't think it would be as simple as envisioned but I think it's an interesting alpha design.

They already calculated energy requirements for the compressors. Security concerns are probably similar to trains.

 

[Sunstone]

Elon Musk, who has brought you fine things such as Paypal, SpaceX, and Tesla Motors, has been releasing hints about a speculative transportation technology for a long time now, and today he finally released the alpha designs.

You can read about Hyperloop here on the Tesla Motors blog, where he has a PDF report on it.

Basically, Musk was angry that California was proposing to build a $60+ billion train system that would be among the highest cost per mile and among the slowest of high speed trains in the world. He doesn't think the home of Silicon Valley, and the NASA lab responsible for putting the Curiosity rover on Mars, should have such a technologically embarrassing, government-subsidized, project.

Instead, he proposes Hyperloop, which some of his experts at SpaceX and Tesla Motors have been doing preliminary designs for. According to his estimates, it costs $6 billion to build the system between San Francisco and Los Angeles, which is 1/10th the price of the current train proposal. It would travel over 700mph, covering the 350 mile distance in a half hour, and the ticket price would be a fraction of the cost of the train ticket or what gas for a car for that trip would cost. Musk doesn't plan on working on it much himself; instead he published the idea to the world, and has specifically requested feedback from experts around the world, so that it can be optimized.

The basic idea is:

-Steel tubes are supported by poles 100 feet apart between the cities. This is better than track on the ground because less land space is needed and it doesn't disrupt farmers. It's all elevated. Plus, the tubes can be made off-site and then easily installed on-site. There are dampeners on each of these poles/pylons to adjust for thermal expansion and ground changes. The tubes will have some internal tracks that use some SpaceX metal which is optimized for heat.

-There is low air pressure inside the long stretch of tubing. Not a vacuum, because that would be too difficult, but very low air pressure. This reduces friction, using current compressor technology.

-There are individual aluminum cars carrying 28 people, with a compressor on the front which draws in air and then redirects it around itself so that it can nearly float in the tube off the tracks with reduced friction much like a hockey puck floats on an air hockey table. It's important to draw the air in from the front so that it doesn't create the syringe-effect where you end up trying to push all of the air in front of you. Plus, since the car pushes air against the tube rather than the tube pushing air against the car, it allows the tubing itself to be really cheap.

-The car accelerates via magnetic force generated from electric motors, but doesn't require all that much force due to the low pressure and only needs boosts every 70 miles or so after the initial gradual acceleration from the station.

-There would be solar panels on top of the whole tube, so that it powers itself.

-There's also a slightly larger option for $10 billion where you can drive you car onto one of the units and then sit in it during the half-hour ride.

I think it'll be interesting to see if this goes anywhere. His previous projects generally all have.

Elegant. At least that's my first impression. I'd go for the larger option. I think it would be much more popular if people could bring their cars with them.

 

[Revoltingest]

He's creating cars with new technology and no pre-made infrastructure. All gas-powered cars already have gas-station infrastructure in place and are relying on ancient engine technology. Tesla's gone further with electric cars than others have and didn't have any initial charging infrastructure to work with.

Government subsidies are great when they go to a good use. A $60 billion slow train is probably not a good use. An increasingly efficient electrical automobile probably is.


I don't think it would be as simple as envisioned but I think it's an interesting alpha design.

They already calculated energy requirements for the compressors. Security concerns are probably similar to trains.

The much higher speeds create a greater potential for disaster though.

 

[Revoltingest]

He's creating cars with new technology and no pre-made infrastructure. All gas-powered cars already have gas-station infrastructure in place and are relying on ancient engine technology. Tesla's gone further with electric cars than others have and didn't have any initial charging infrastructure to work with.
Government subsidies are great when they go to a good use. A $60 billion slow train is probably not a good use. An increasingly efficient electrical automobile probably is.

I don't consider it a good use to subsidize a low volume rich man's toy to the tune of over $10K per vehicle (fed tax credit, state tax credit, parts supplier subsidies). There are areas with far greater leverage of taxpayer money.

 

[freethinker44]

The much higher speeds create a greater potential for disaster though.

High speed or not, it is still one of the safest ways to travel. And a lot of the accidents that do happen are the result of negligence or human error. And really, once you get past a certain speed, the speed of the train is a non factor in survival rate. A train derailing while going 100 mph is likely to kill just as many passengers as one going 200mph, in either case you would be lucky to survive.

 

[Penumbra]

The much higher speeds create a greater potential for disaster though.

True, but the cars would be dozens of miles apart and have emergency breaks.

In a crash of a typical train, which is rare, a great percentage of the people often die. These cars each carry only 28 people. There are pros and cons.

Since you're an engineer, I'd recommend reading the actual PDF report if you're at all interested. It's a 57 page report that gives a pretty good initial presentation for much of the quantitative stuff for the whole system, from specific compressor details to a detailed cost breakdown.

In unrelated but awesome news, SpaceX did a bigger test not too long ago with their Grasshopper Rocket, which can take off and then land vertically on the same spot it took off from.

[youtube]rK6StxRc22Q[/youtube]
Grasshopper Rocket Soars to Over 1000 Feet | Hexacopter View | SpaceX Science HD - YouTube

 

[freethinker44]

I don't consider it a good use to subsidize a low volume rich man's toy to the tune of over $10K per vehicle (fed tax credit, state tax credit, parts supplier subsidies). There are areas with far greater leverage of taxpayer money.

I disagree with most subsidies. Most don't result in cheaper costs to consumers. The lower overhead costs just mean bigger profit margin, not cheaper products most of the time.

 

[Penumbra]

I don't consider it a good use to subsidize a low volume rich man's toy to the tune of over $10K per vehicle (fed tax credit, state tax credit, parts supplier subsidies). There are areas with far greater leverage of taxpayer money.

I don't think you're looking long-term enough.

Tesla is bringing costs down every year. They don't have the scale yet to produce cars inexpensively. The goal is to reach a critical volume and with improved technology so that electric cars can be competitive without subsidies.

But if you don't start somewhere, you'll never finish. Most tech starts out expensive and suboptimal with rich initial-users and then increases in refinement and scale for the general public. Something as expansive as changing the engine/gas infrastructure and car system we have requires more than a half-bankrupt GM putting a few million dollars a year into minor electrical research.

 

[Sunstone]

True, but the cars would...have emergency breaks.

But..but breaks are for wus's!

 

[Penumbra]

But..but breaks are for wus's!

I meant brakes.

 

[freethinker44]

I meant brakes.

Brakes? Please, I'm too busy playing candy crush saga on my phone.

 

[Penumbra]

I disagree with most subsidies. Most don't result in cheaper costs to consumers. The lower overhead costs just mean bigger profit margin, not cheaper products most of the time.

In the case of Tesla Motors, they don't yet make a profit. Their profit margin is negative. Revenue is growing like wildfire, especially in 2013, and the revenue goes towards the creation of the car and research and development.

Individual vehicle price is dropping and volume is expanding, and they're also developing plans to put charging stations across the country, so I think they can be profitable eventually and the country will be better off for it.

 

[Sunstone]

I meant brakes.

No problem. Sometimes even the best of us misspell words. But that's the breaks!

 

[Revoltingest]

I don't think you're looking long-term enough.

I do. Expensive greenwash projects don't have enuf value.
If we subsidize electrics, high volume consumer products yield more bang for the buck.
In old Fordspeak, the Tesla money pit is a "boondoggle", ie, government throws money at something sexy.

Tesla is bringing costs down every year. They don't have the scale yet to produce cars inexpensively. The goal is to reach a critical volume and with improved technology so that electric cars can be competitive without subsidies.
But if you don't start somewhere, you'll never finish. Most tech starts out expensive and suboptimal with rich initial-users and then increases in refinement and scale for the general public. Something as expansive as changing the engine/gas infrastructure and car system we have requires more than a half-bankrupt GM putting a few million dollars a year into minor electrical research.

One can justify almost any dog & pony show if one looks only at the positive, ignores the costs, & fails to quantify either. It's all just glamorous faux economics.

 

[Penumbra]

I do. Expensive greenwash projects don't have enuf value.
If we subsidize electrics, high volume consumer products yield more bang for the buck.
In old Fordspeak, the Tesla money pit is a "boondoggle", ie, government throws money at something sexy.

One can justify almost any dog & pony show if one looks only at the positive, ignores the costs, & fails to quantify either. It's all just glamorous faux economics.

Tesla is moving towards high volume consumer products. That's the long-term goal.

Most tech starts with initial users. Cell phones, for example, were extremely expensive and huge. Now they're 100x more powerful, a fraction of the size, and available for a fraction of the cost, because they took money from initial rich users and used it for expansion.

Tesla is similar. There are subsidies, but Tesla is taking the bulk of their revenue from wealthy initial users, who get an expensive viable electric car that will likely be considered clunky has heck 5-10 years from now when they ramp up volume and bring down costs and have 5-10 years more of research and development for better tech.

Plus, research often yields other fruit. NASA research, for example, yielded all kinds of non-space related tech. In Hyperloop, a key thing is that they have to use a ton of battery storage on the cars, because the on board compressors use that energy for a half-hour straight for the air hockey table effect that keeps it afloat and mostly frictionless. In the design, it uses Tesla batteries.

Storage of energy for electrical production is an area where technology has not seen as much improvement as we would have liked over the last several decades, and since it's still a limiting factor for so many things, it has so many applications to develop better ways of electrical storage.

 

[Revoltingest]

Tesla is moving towards high volume consumer products. That's the long-term goal.

Most tech starts with initial users. Cell phones, for example, were extremely expensive and huge. Now they're 100x more powerful, a fraction of the size, and available for a fraction of the cost, because they took money from initial rich users and used it for expansion.

Tesla is similar. There are subsidies, but Tesla is taking the bulk of their revenue from wealthy initial users, who get an expensive viable electric car that will likely be considered clunky has heck 5-10 years from now when they ramp up volume and bring down costs and have 5-10 years more of research and development for better tech.

Plus, research often yields other fruit. NASA research, for example, yielded all kinds of non-space related tech. In Hyperloop, a key thing is that they have to use a ton of battery storage on the cars, because the on board compressors use that energy for a half-hour straight for the air hockey table effect that keeps it afloat and mostly frictionless. In the design, it uses Tesla batteries.

Storage of energy for electrical production is an area where technology has not seen as much improvement as we would have liked over the last several decades, and since it's still a limiting factor for so many things, it has so many applications to develop better ways of electrical storage.

What technological advances do we have from Tesla?
I suspect that we'd do better by addressing:
- More affordable hybrids, especially for trucks
- Pseudo-Atkinson cycle engines (variable valve timing with direct injection eliminating throttling losses)
- Small diesels
- Adiabatic engine advances
- Continuously variable transmissions (Ford has been working on them for over half a century.)
- Heavy truck aerodynamic improvements

 

[Penumbra]

What technological advances do we have from Tesla?
I suspect that we'd do better by addressing:
- More affordable hybrids, especially for trucks
- Pseudo-Atkinson cycle engines (variable valve timing with direct injection eliminating throttling losses)
- Small diesels
- Adiabatic engine advances
- Continuously variable transmissions (Ford has been working on them for over half a century.)
- Heavy truck aerodynamic improvements

Most of that is incremental. Vehicle manufacturers can do it with their own R&D.

Hybrids, for example, have been increasingly viable, but they have the fortune of not needing any differences at all in infrastructure- they still ultimately run on gas and using the existing infrastructure and don't require any re-ordering of society.

Same thing with improvements on heavy trucks. Heavy truck manufacturers make better trucks over time.

I'd potentially be in favor of public money towards better engines like some of the ones you mentioned, plus the money that subsidies electric vehicles (not just Tesla's).

Tesla's advancement is the first electric car that is comparable to what people currently drive. They have improved batteries from where they were five years ago, and have made cars that can go viable distances before charging, and that out-score competitors across the board.

The main electric competitor in the U.S. is the Nissan Leaf. For $30k you get a compact car that weighs a hefty 3,300 pounds being pushed by a sluggish 110hp engine, and that has an ideal unrealistic perfect cruising range of only 138 miles, a highway range of only 70 miles, and a city range of only 105 miles. It's worse in bad weather or bad traffic. Is that the way to go to catch onto the American car market in a wide sense? Overly expensive compact cars with crappy performance compared to gas-powered cars that are half their cost?

Tesla's Model S is a more expensive sedan, has better performance, is more luxurious, and has twice the range, among other improvements, and has been much more highly awarded than the Leaf. I think Tesla's approach of a more mainstream car is what can actually get Americans to buy electric vehicles. Right now they're in the luxury price range because their volume is low compared to the Fords of the world, but when volume increases tenfold and as tech keeps inching forward, the price can keep coming down.

Overall demand and competition for battery tech keeps the industry reporting 5-8% improvements each year in the batteries.