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Elon Musk Conceives New 'Hyperloop' Transportation System: Neither Plane, Train, Boat Nor Car. Is it ET3?

By Rain Noe - June 3, 2013

in Cars

Last year at an event in Los Angeles, Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed he'd come up with the idea for an entirely new form of transportation. He called it the Hyperloop, and here's how he described it:

...How would you like something that can never crash, is immune to weather, goes 3 or 4 times faster than the bullet train... it goes an average speed of twice what an aircraft would do. You would go from downtown LA to downtown San Francisco in under 30 minutes. It would cost you much less than an air ticket than any other mode of transport. I think we could actually make it self-powering if you put solar panels on it, you generate more power than you would consume in the system. There's a way to store the power so it would run 24/7 without using batteries. Yes, this is possible, absolutely.

Naturally this got people's curiosity up, and at this week's AllThingsD conference he was asked about it again. Not wanting to divert attention from Tesla, he briefly allowed that the Hyperloop would be a "cross between a Concorde, a railgun and an air hockey table."

This sounds a lot like the futuristic ET3, or Evacuated Tube Transport Technology, we wrote up last year (pictured directly below and up top).

But in their quest to figure out what Musk might be imagining, Business Insider has looked not to the future, but to the past. They dug up a Rand Corporation research paper written way back in 1972, where physicist R.M. Salter described a VHST (Very High Speed Transit System), which sounds like the ET3 but underground:

The VHST would be a vacuum sealed tube buried underground that would zip across the country... "The VHST's 'tubecraft' ride on, and are driven by, electromagnetic waves...."

[It] would be highly efficient. Unlike a plane, "it does not have to squander unrecoverable energy climbing to high altitudes." The VHST would accelerate to its maximum speed, then coast for a short while, then decelerate, says Salter. It would use all its kinetic energy to accelerate, and that power would be returned when it decelerates through energy regeneration.

In 1972, the Rand Corporation said it had already examined speeds of 14,000 miles per hour. At that speed, it would take 21 minutes to go from Los Angeles to New York City. According to Salter's research, a coast to coast VHST trip would happen faster than it takes a plane going coast to coast to get to its peak altitude.

The VHST would have to be underground. Digging the tunnels would be the biggest problem with creating the VHST. It would require political agreement and high costs to dig the actual tunnels. (90% of the cost would be building tunnels.) There are a lot of benefits to a tunnel, though: "protection against sabotage, right of way costs, surface congestion, grade separation problems, and noise pollution go away."

Salter's VHST paper can be freely viewed or downloaded here.

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JW

11 years ago

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He didn't come up with it. The technology was patented in the late 90's, and the company ET3 has been trying to get this off the ground ever since. Elon Musk is simply just now getting behind it. That's great that he has chosen to support it. I've been waiting for years for this to gain traction.
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Jibbits McGee

11 years ago

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I don't need it for personal transit. It'd be great to have an overhead system adjacent to the freeways that is used for shipping. The end-result would be surpluses of diesel fuel I suppose as long-haul trucking disappeared.

Question: How does the average guy benefit from this kind of system? In general he doesn't, which is why I think not much has changed in travel/shipping in 50 years.
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ARBO

11 years ago

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that scribd link is down, could anybody share the document, please?
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SRD

11 years ago

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@MRM - We're all traveling at 107,200 km/h right now on the Earth. The real concern is g-force and that will be controlled by the geometry of the tube and the rate of acceleration of inbound and outbound pods.

Such a system will change the world dramatically, for the better. It will have a similar effect that the internet had with information, only with physical objects.

Potenetial problems may arise with ET3; but rather than denounce the technology, why not try to think of solutions? There are fortunes to be made with the arrival of this new mode of transportation.
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Kirk

11 years ago

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I've been emailing and posting this concept anywhere it comes up, I knew I saw it or read about it, honestly I thought the first leg ought to be built between Ottawa Canada and Washington DC, much easier and shorter route to test the technology, and there are some mountains to deal with, plus it could have some good international relations impacts with Canada. For those conspiracy types out there, this system is supposedly had already existed and networked some east coast military bases and area 51, something happened and large portions of the network were destroyed, relating to the earthquake in Virginia that shook the whole east coast, while the time frame makes sense, it seems outlandish, it would likely be another 50 years before we ever know, there are however many bunkers from the early 60's into the late 70's that were never disclosed, that unlike conspiracy is reality.
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MRM

11 years ago

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Do you know what happens to the human body (at the cellular level) subjected to Very High Speeds (short & long term effects)?
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Dan

11 years ago

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Seems like a great idea just conceptualized too early. Maybe in a few decades or so it will be a reality
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CVF

11 years ago

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Never crash? Maybe not in the traditional sense, but with every new form of trasnportation there is a new form of catastrophe. I', not saying it's not a good idea, but enough with the Utopian jibber-jabber. Read some Virilio, Mr. Musk.
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Ken J

11 years ago

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While many people are focusing on the vacuum tube, we forget that the passenger cars themselves will be required to seal from vacuum. A firearm, small explosive, or even a simple malfunction on-board could breach the capsule carrying passengers possibly exposing all to the vacuum. Serious safety concerns have to be addressed when placing people in vacuum transports.
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gmoke

11 years ago

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Reminds me of the time I rode on Beach Pneumatic Transit back in 1870:
http://www.nycsubway.org/wiki/Beach_Pneumatic_Transit
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Scott

11 years ago

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Thanks Mark. Nic- the interstates have the coverage, but are publicly owned and operated by 48 separate state governments, and cross hundreds of counties and municipalities. It can take a decade just to add a couple lanes to a highway. The federal government (or a private company) couldn't just step in and say "we're going to run a giant pneumatic tube through here." The railroads could, however. Their tracks mostly sit on privately held land or easements with very broad rights, they tend to have minimal grade changes, shallow curves, etc. Even better, there are thousands of miles of abandoned rail lines that could be reactivated very quickly, without disrupting any existing service.
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Mark

11 years ago

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SPRINT = Southern Pacific Railroad Internal Network Telecommunications
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supafluous

11 years ago

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Well, sir, there's nothing on earth
Like a genuine,
Bona fide,
Electrified,
Six-car
Monorail! ...
What'd I say?
Monorail!
What's it called?
Monorail!
That's right! Monorail!
I hear those things are awfully loud...
It glides as softly as a cloud.
Is there a chance the track could bend?
Not on your life, my Hindu friend.
What about us brain-dead slobs?
You'll all be given cushy jobs.
Were you sent here by the devil?
No, good sir, I'm on the level.
The ring came off my pudding can.
Take my pen knife, my good man.
I swear it's Springfield's only choice...
Throw up your hands and raise your voice!
Monorail!
What's it called?
Monorail!
Once again...
Monorail!
But Main Street's still all cracked and broken...
Sorry, Mom, the mob has spoken!
Monorail!
Monorail!
Monorail!
Monorail!
Mono... D'oh!
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nic

11 years ago

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the land is already allocated, use the space between lanes on the interstate.

no vegas? amarillo? why not have it go places people want to go!?
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Mitch

11 years ago

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Fact is, these things would have to be monitored with on board video, panic buttons even panic voice commands. Then you would get all sorts of "traffic jam" backups throughout the system.
Riders who experience Health issues, even personal safety when travelling in a pod with a stranger...I imagine plenty of creeps riding this thing all day long.
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powers

11 years ago

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"The VHST would be a vacuum sealed tube buried underground that would zip across the country..." THX1138 here we come... I pity my daughter who will have a job monitoring the guy making the police robots that control them both. Anyway, I always thought this type of concept would be better for freight. Maybe WalMart* FedEx & Apple could chip in for development. Americans, my self included, loves us some personal transportation.
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Scott

11 years ago

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I remember having this idea when I was a kid, looks like the Rand Corp beat me to it though. The only practical way to cross that much land is to make it fit within the footprint of existing railroad rights-of-way. That was how Sprint (Southern Pacific Railroad something something Telecommunications) laid its fiber optic network. If you get the railroads on board, you can circumvent all the government BS and NIMBYism that would hold a project like this up for decades. The railroads have incredible leeway because all those contracts were drawn up in the 19th century robber baron era.
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LukeJ

11 years ago

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Really interesting paradigm. I would worry about the implications of earthquakes on the system relating to safety and repair if it were to be underground though.
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