A hyperloop is a proposed mode of passenger and/or freight transportation, first named as such in an open-source vactrain design released by a joint team from Tesla and SpaceX.Drawing heavily from Robert Goddard's vactrain, a hyperloop comprises a sealed tube or system of tubes through which a pod may travel free of air resistance or friction conveying people or objects at optimal clarification needed] speed and acceleration.
Elon Musk's version of the concept, first publicly mentioned in 2012,incorporates reduced-pressure tubes in which pressurized capsules ride on air bearings driven by linear induction motors and air compressors.
The Hyperloop Alpha concept was first published in August 2013, proposing and examining a route running from the Los Angeles region to the San Francisco Bay Area roughly following the Interstate 5 corridor. The paper conceived of a hyperloop system that would propel passengers along the 350-mile (560 km) route at an average speed of around 600 mph (970 km/h), with a top speed of 760 mph (1,200 km/h), allowing for a travel time of 35 minutes, which is considerably faster than current rail or air travel times. Preliminary cost estimates for this LA–SF suggested route were included in the white paper—US$6 billion for a passenger-only version, and US$7.5 billion for a somewhat larger-diameter version transporting passengers and vehicles — although transportation analysts had doubts that the system could be constructed on that budget; some analysts claimed that the Hyperloop would be several billion dollars overbudget due to construction, development and operation costs.
The Hyperloop concept has been explicitly open-sourced by Musk and SpaceX, and others have been encouraged to take the ideas and further develop them.
To that end, a few companies have been formed, and several interdisciplinary student-led teams are working to advance the technology.SpaceX is building an approximately 1-mile-long (1.6 km) subscale track for its pod design competition at its headquarters in Hawthorne, California.
Some experts are skeptical, saying that the proposals ignore the expenses and risks of developing the technology and that the idea is "completely impractical".Claims have also been made that the Hyperloop is too susceptible to disruption from a power outage or terror attacks to be considered safe.