It really sucks to see just how much money and time was wasted on such a monumentally stupid idea. I just want to see a string of mea cuplas from all the government officials, venture capitalists, and others that were duped by this and set back the growth of high speed rail by half a decade.
this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2023
109 points (100.0% liked)
Technology
37719 readers
366 users here now
A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.
Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
One of its primary purposes was literally as a distraction to prevent investment in traditional transportation infrastructure like trains. When a car maker is suggesting some kind of strange new transportation technology, be skeptical always.
And it wasn't entirely unsuccessful. Vegas got duped on it (plus boring company) pretty badly, for example. Idiot suckers. But it wasn't successful enough for the auto mogul Elon Musk to continue throwing money at it I suppose.
Why would they apologize for doing what they were paid to do? The hyperloop's entire purpose was to keep the personal automobile hopium alive for as long as possible. If anything they're going to apologize to shareholders for not delaying sensible infrastructure investment further.
Especially since this was what was touted as the solution when spiking high speed rail in California… Drives me mad.
set back the growth of high speed rail by half a decade
Elmo regurgitated that hyperloop nonsense a full decade ago, in 2013.
Hyperloop was always a project to sabotage high-speed rail. Good thing it failed.
Either the Americans have very weird ideas about transportation or they're completely controlled by auto companies. I don't understand how they think that cars or this stupidloop is better than high speed rail. Traveling by train is far more relaxing, way less infuriating and leaves time for you to do something else meaningful. US is probably the only country that went back on rail transport. Every other country is taking it as far as they possibly can.
Either the Americans have very weird ideas about transportation or they're completely controlled by auto companies.
Consider both: we know the auto companies controlled the populace by destroying any choice. We also know that public transit is looked on as a plebes travel mode ripe for gutting at every turn so the rich (and those who are gonna be rich any day now) can benefit.
US is probably the only country that went back on rail transport. Every other country is taking it as far as they possibly can.
I don't know for other countries, but Germany (that has a decent high-speed rail network, to be fair) had a rail network of almost 55,000 km in the 50s and less than 40,000 today. More than 300 train stations have been closed since the year 2000 alone.
EDIT: sources:
https://interaktiv.morgenpost.de/bahn-schienennetz-deutschland-1835-bis-heute/
https://www.allianz-pro-schiene.de/themen/aktuell/336-bahnhoefe-seit-2000-stillgelegt/
And high-speed trains are chronically late... :/
Come on, almost two thirds of DB Fernverkehr's trains are punctual (if you accept DB's definition of punctuality, which allows six minutes of delay to still be counted as punctual).
This is Canada erasure.
And Australia. Frankly the whole anglosphere. Large parts of Asia, too. Vietnam's public transport is abysmal, and as the country imports more and more cars (over the motorbikes the country has historically been famous for) traffic is becoming absolutely insane.
Saigon has been building a metro since 2013 and still doesn't have even a single line in operation. (That's in no small part thanks to high levels of governmental corruption, rather than the same kind of car dependency in the west, but it comes down to a similar thing: money.)
I walk an extra half hour so I can take the train instead of the bus for my morning commute. It’s worth it.
Musk HATES hates public transportation. Which is weird because he's in a private jet when he travels anyways.
It's not weird at all, he owns a car company.
And somehow convinced americans that single lane traffic jam lubes are a good idea.
...that's not hypocritical at all. Hates one because / so he uses the other and is used to the luxury.
He´s selling cars, you know.
Man stop linking to twitter
It is so weird that people are still regularly linking to this Nazi's website like it's a totally fine thing to do.
It just so happened to be the canonical source for this piece of information. And it wasn't being run by an antisemite at the time the linked tweet was being written.
Even still, use nitter or something if you really have to.
The tweet wasn’t easily available on nitter (it wasn’t being highlighted).
If there still isn't any high-speed rail I wouldn't say it failed...
Most of those lines have been in the works since I was in college (I graduated in 2005). In fact, I think the Clinton administration first announced the west coast line, and over a billion dollars was allocated to it by Obama. Not a single rail has been put down yet.
Several stops have been created for ca high speed rail in the valley
I assume by "fail" you mean "didn't succeed in preventing California from building an efficient high-speed rail system", right?
It kind of did though. California HSR isn't doing very hot in the court of public opinion last time I heard about it
Exactly. The good kind of failure.
Elon Musk should get directly sued from the State of California for active sabotage of it's public infrastructure.
the city of chicago also get in on this action
@throws_lemy Hyperloop is a solution for a non existing problem. There are already fast landline based systems. You can go really fast on rails (see Japan) or you can use a maglev.
Incorrect, the hyperloop always had precisely one purpose, for which it likely was pretty successful: https://jalopnik.com/did-musk-propose-hyperloop-to-stop-california-high-spee-1849402460
I don’t think the problem to be solved was “how to go fast”. It was more like “how to create travel corridors with minimal impact to private property”
Another musk failure
AFAIK the Hyperloop thing was just a push to postpone investment in public transportation until Tesla has some market dominance and be proposed as better green solution than public transport
Yes I agree
But if we get enough people to label it as a failure instead of a secret success maybe elon's ego will prevent him from doing it again in the future. The more failures the public can lay at his feet also means less political pressure to allow him to get away with shit like that.
So far twitter and hyperloop have been major disasters. Neurolink is probably just a matter of time. Maybe even starlink as it's way too expensive for most casual uses at the moment, will depend on the price coming down.
Tesla build quality may come up to bit them in the ass in the long run too.
I do hope spaceX survives his blundering though.
I find it much more insulting that he took a whole nation for fools
Edit: but fortunately you're right about all his failing projects.
The biggest reason why I admire SpaceX so much is that they manage to do so much with this hypermoron at the helm. Two other examples besides the hyperloop are the Vegas loop and his vision for neuralink. Apparently, SpaceX has special tactics to stoke his grandiose ego and trick him into giving them the freedom they need.
Apparently, SpaceX has special tactics to stoke his grandiose ego and trick him into giving them the freedom they need.
It's a tale as old as bosses. Many of them have big egos and think that because they're in charge that magically gives them expertise. So if you want to do something you either get them looking at something shiny or you make them think it's their idea.
I had a boss like that ages ago. If I wanted to work on something out of the ordinary I would plant the idea, then a few weeks later I would remind him that he brought it up a while ago. I used the fact that he had a million things going on so he never really remembered who brought it up. I didn't care that he got the credit because I got to work on cool things and expand my repertoire.
Hyperloop did exactly what Musk intended.
i hope every other one of elons businesses dies next
the dream that originated with Elon Musk’s so-called “alpha paper” in 2013.
People better trust actual researchers instead.
🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:
Click here to see the summary
Hyperloop One, the futuristic transportation startup that promised to whisk us through nearly airless tubes at airline speeds, is shutting down, according to Bloomberg.
Musk theorized that aerodynamic aluminum capsules filled with passengers or cargo could be propelled through a nearly airless tube at speeds of up to 760mph.
The company came out of the gate strong, with tens of millions of dollars of funding and a bold vision of hyperloop systems all around the globe.
A year later, another co-founder, Shervin Pishevar, was ousted amid allegations of sexual assault and misconduct.
During the pandemic, nearly all of the top executives and founders left Hyperloop One, which also shed the Virgin from its name after the company decided to eschew passenger trips in favor of cargo.
The Boring Company, Musk’s tunneling operation, is still digging underground passageways in Las Vegas — but for Teslas, not hyperloops.
Saved 77% of original text.
Don’t Google “DP world”.