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Speaker 1: Get technology with tech Stuff from stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I am your host,

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Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm a senior writer for how stuff works

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Speaker 1: dot com, where we explain how stuff works. If you've

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Speaker 1: ever wondered how a car engine works, or how people

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Speaker 1: work or in some cases don't work, go to how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. You'll likely find the answers to

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Speaker 1: all your questions there, and if you don't, let us know,

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Speaker 1: we'll find the answers for you. But here on tech Stuff,

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Speaker 1: I cover all things technological. I love technology, and I've

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Speaker 1: been doing this for about eight years, so uh not

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Speaker 1: that I've gotten really great at it, but I'm still

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Speaker 1: so enthusiastic. I'm so enthusiastic in fact, that I'm going

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Speaker 1: to revisit a topic that we covered way back in

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Speaker 1: two thousand thirteen. That would be hyper loop. Yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: when we published the episode titled the Hype about hyper Loop,

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Speaker 1: because I'm clever with headlines, y'all. Since that time, we've

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Speaker 1: had a couple of startups that formed in order to

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Speaker 1: pour in money, time, resources effort to make hyper loop

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Speaker 1: into a reality. Change it from just this interesting vision

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Speaker 1: Elon Musk had into an actual form of transportation. So

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Speaker 1: I thought it would behoove us to revisit the topic

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Speaker 1: and see where things stand now. Plus I can use

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Speaker 1: the word behoove again. That's twice in the same day.

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Speaker 1: I'm recording this. The same day I did a live

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Speaker 1: stream about the game Dungeons and Dragons on a show

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Speaker 1: called Game Changers. Behoof is my word of the day. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: I can also talk about a really boring company, and

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Speaker 1: that's what's called foreshadowing. Now, before I jump into the

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Speaker 1: latest news, I should go back over the history of

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Speaker 1: the hyper loop concepts upped and explain not just where

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Speaker 1: it came from, but what is the actual idea of

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Speaker 1: the hyper loop and how is it supposed to work?

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Speaker 1: And why is it even something worth talking about. Well

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Speaker 1: back in August, that's when the world at large learned

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Speaker 1: about the hyper loop concept. It's when Elon Musk published

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Speaker 1: a white paper that was about fifty eight pages long.

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Speaker 1: And Elon Musk, in case you aren't aware, is the

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Speaker 1: entrepreneur behind such companies as SpaceX, the private space company,

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Speaker 1: and Tesla, the electric vehicle company. This white paper was

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Speaker 1: all about a high tech transportation system is kind of

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Speaker 1: a train, kind of like a subway, kind of like well,

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Speaker 1: Elon must described it as a cross between a hockey table,

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Speaker 1: like an air hockey table and a rail gun, which

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Speaker 1: is a pretty exciting way to think about getting from

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Speaker 1: point A to point B. Now, the motivating factor for

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Speaker 1: all of this seems to be that the state of

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Speaker 1: California had approved a high speed rail project and Elon

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Speaker 1: Musk it got his dander up. If you were to

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Speaker 1: look at Elon Musk's dander that day, it would have

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Speaker 1: been in the up position. Now, that's because in that

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Speaker 1: white paper, Musk laid out all of his frustrations with

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Speaker 1: this high speed rail project, and they really boiled down

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Speaker 1: to two major ones with a lot of subsidiary ones.

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Speaker 1: The two major ones was that would be that that

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Speaker 1: one it was incredibly expensive, just really a multibillion dollar project,

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Speaker 1: so it was in his mind financially wasteful. Secondly, he

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Speaker 1: argued that out of all the high speed rail systems

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Speaker 1: that were in operation or proposed, it was one of

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Speaker 1: the slowest. So he said, on a per mile basis,

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Speaker 1: it's one of the most expensive. On a speed basis,

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Speaker 1: it's one of the slowest. So why would you want

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Speaker 1: to spend a lot of money to not get anywhere fast.

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Speaker 1: He thought that that was an incredible waste of time

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Speaker 1: and money, and that it wasn't going to solve the

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Speaker 1: issue of of of of speeding up travel between major cities,

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Speaker 1: specifically Los Angeles and San Francisco, which are quite far apart.

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Speaker 1: If you're not familiar with California geography, you might think, oh, well,

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Speaker 1: those are two cities in the same state, but they

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Speaker 1: are hundreds of miles apart from one another. It takes

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Speaker 1: more than five hours of driving to get between the two.

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Speaker 1: So a high speed rail system would be nice, if

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Speaker 1: in fact it were high speed. But Must argued that

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Speaker 1: the the one that was proposed was not nearly fast

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Speaker 1: enough to be any more advantageous than just taking a

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Speaker 1: flight from Los Angeles to San Francisco, and that there

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Speaker 1: had to be a better way, And so he said

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Speaker 1: there needed to be a less expensive, safer, faster method

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Speaker 1: of getting from San Francisco to Los Angeles or vice versa,

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Speaker 1: and that he had the better idea. Now Must acknowledge

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Speaker 1: that for cities that are really far apart from each other,

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Speaker 1: think about a thousand miles or kilometers or more, supersonic

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Speaker 1: air travel is likely the best option, assuming we can

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Speaker 1: solve a few major issues with supersonic travel. One of

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Speaker 1: those is getting the right airplane geometry to minimize sonic

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Speaker 1: booms so that air travel doesn't become massively disruptive for

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Speaker 1: the population on the ground. A sonic boom, by the way,

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Speaker 1: is when you have uh some mass traveling faster than

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Speaker 1: the speed of sound through whatever medium you are traveling through. So,

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Speaker 1: in the case of air, depending upon air pressure and

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Speaker 1: temperature and that sort of thing, if you're traveling faster

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Speaker 1: than the speed of sound, you're building up this pressure

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Speaker 1: wave that ends up collapsing in on itself after the

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Speaker 1: object passes through that area, and that collapse creates this

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Speaker 1: sonic boom. The sonic boom travels with the object as

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Speaker 1: it moves through. So if you have a supersonic jet

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Speaker 1: traveling overhead, that boom you hear as it passes over,

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Speaker 1: it's not just a single boom. That boom is actually

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Speaker 1: traveling with the supersonic aircraft as long as it is

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Speaker 1: traveling at those incredible speeds. So there are companies that

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Speaker 1: are working on building out better plane models that can

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Speaker 1: travel at these supersonic speeds while minimizing that sonic boom,

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Speaker 1: and they're making some amazing progress. Uh. These are include

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Speaker 1: private companies as well as NASA working on these designs. So,

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Speaker 1: assuming we get that problem solved, Musk says, it's probably

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Speaker 1: going to be the case that the most efficient way

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Speaker 1: to travel the most uh the cheapest way. Really, it's

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Speaker 1: everything from the amount of time you're spending to the

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Speaker 1: amount of money you spend, will probably be supersonic travel.

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Speaker 1: But for cities that are closer together than that but

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Speaker 1: still a good distance away, let's say, like nine hundred

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Speaker 1: miles around kilometers apart from each other, you would want

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Speaker 1: a different solution because with a supersonic jet, you would

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Speaker 1: reach cruising altitude and you would only then be able

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Speaker 1: to accelerate to supersonic speeds, but you would only be

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Speaker 1: doing that for a very short while before you had

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Speaker 1: to descend. You would be essentially be up and down

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Speaker 1: so fast that you can't really take advantage of the

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Speaker 1: supersonic travel part. So it doesn't make sense to take

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Speaker 1: a supersonic flight between two cities that are nine hundred

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Speaker 1: miles or closer together. What you could do is build

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Speaker 1: this hyper loop system in order to travel at incredible

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Speaker 1: speeds between those points. And that's where the sweet spot

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Speaker 1: is between two cities that are nine miles apart or less,

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Speaker 1: and that they have to be two cities where you

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Speaker 1: would typically have a lot of heavy travel between the two.

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Speaker 1: There's gotta be a lot of traffic. So assuming you

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Speaker 1: have that situation, that's where hyperloop, he argues, would make

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Speaker 1: a lot of sense. Again, his example being Los Angeles

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Speaker 1: and San Francisco, but any major metropolitan areas where there's

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Speaker 1: a lot of travel between the cities that are at

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Speaker 1: this distance from one another would be candidates for this

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Speaker 1: kind of transportation system. Uh. He would want this train

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Speaker 1: sort of hybrid system to travel at incredible speeds, not

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Speaker 1: quite supersonic. We'll get into that. This is a system

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Speaker 1: that that consists of an enclosed tube or tunnel, and

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Speaker 1: the air pressure inside that tube would be low. It

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Speaker 1: would still be present, but it would be low. So

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Speaker 1: you would have these giant pumps along the tube that

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Speaker 1: would pump out a lot of the air. So you

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Speaker 1: have a very low pressure system inside the tube that

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Speaker 1: lowers the air resistance considerably but does not create an

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Speaker 1: actual vacuum. So there's still air inside the tube. Usk

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Speaker 1: acknowledges that the vacuum approach, though very effective it removes

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Speaker 1: air resistance, UH, would be incredibly difficult to achieve from

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Speaker 1: an engineering perspective, because even the smallest imperfection in the

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Speaker 1: tube would allow air to leak in. You know, if

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Speaker 1: you have an extremely low pressure system and you've got

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Speaker 1: greater pressure on the outside, obviously any leak, any crack

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Speaker 1: is going to allow air to rush in. So he

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Speaker 1: says going with a low pressure system would make more

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Speaker 1: sense than a vacuum. UH, it's too difficult to maintain

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Speaker 1: a vacuum within a room, much less a five hundred

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Speaker 1: mile long loop of tube. In his words, so rather

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Speaker 1: than using something like a mag lev system magnetic levitation

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Speaker 1: system in which the train would levitate above the tunnel

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Speaker 1: floor using electromagnetic repulsion, Musk was proposing using air bearings instead.

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Speaker 1: So this would not be a system where you use

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Speaker 1: magnets in order to repel one another and that would

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Speaker 1: make the capsule float off the floor of the tube. Instead,

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Speaker 1: it would be like an air hockey table. So if

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Speaker 1: you're not familiar with these, UH, an air hockey table

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Speaker 1: is a table that's got a surface with tiny pin

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Speaker 1: prick holes in it, and a fan under the surface

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Speaker 1: of the table blows air up through those holes. You

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Speaker 1: put a little plastic hockey puck on top of the table.

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Speaker 1: The air coming up from the bottom ends up making

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Speaker 1: the hockey puck glide across the table. So that's kind

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Speaker 1: of the principle he had for the the hyper loop concept,

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Speaker 1: except instead of having the tube generating this air and

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Speaker 1: blowing against the capsule, he thought of the capsule having

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Speaker 1: essentially these pin pricks at the bottom of the capsule

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Speaker 1: blowing air down, so that would be where the capsule

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Speaker 1: would generate some lift. It would also generate left through

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Speaker 1: its forward momentum. And at the front of this capsule

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Speaker 1: he wants he post putting a pump a fan essentially,

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Speaker 1: because there's still air inside the tube. If you didn't

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Speaker 1: have a way of moving that air around the capsule,

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Speaker 1: you would run into an issue where you're compressing the

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Speaker 1: air ahead of you. As the capsule moves down the tube,

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Speaker 1: it's pushing a column of air, and if the air

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Speaker 1: cannot get around the capsule fast enough, you start compressing

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Speaker 1: it and that ends up being like an air braking system.

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Speaker 1: It will actually slow down and ultimately stop the capsule

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Speaker 1: pushing against it in the other direction. So he proposed

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Speaker 1: putting a fan in the front of the capsule to

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Speaker 1: pull air in partly to allow the capsule to continue

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Speaker 1: moving down the tube at speed, but also feeding into

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Speaker 1: an air compressor that then would power these air bearings

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Speaker 1: and allow the capsule to maintain lift on the bottom

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Speaker 1: of the over the top of the tube flooring. And

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Speaker 1: because you're not using wheels, you're not losing a lot

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Speaker 1: of energy to friction. Right. You've got a little bit

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Speaker 1: of airs instance that you're dealing with, but you're not

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Speaker 1: dealing with wheels running against a surface, so that loss

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Speaker 1: of energy to friction is minimized. It's still there, you

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Speaker 1: still have some air resistance, you still have some other

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Speaker 1: elements of friction, but it's greatly reduced. So uh, this approach,

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Speaker 1: he said, was going to be an effective engineering solution

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Speaker 1: to the problem. Um, now, what about propulsion. The air

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Speaker 1: bearings provide lift, but how does the capsule actually move forward?

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Speaker 1: This is where Elon Musk was suggesting the external linear

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Speaker 1: electric motor version of of propulsion. So if you know

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Speaker 1: how an electric motor works, let's use a very simple version.

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Speaker 1: You've got let's say, a permanent magnet, and you've got

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Speaker 1: some uh, you've got some electromagnet, you know, conductive wire,

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Speaker 1: insulated conductive wire. We're we're talking more of a dynamo

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Speaker 1: than a motor here. And you move the permanent magnet

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Speaker 1: so that it's north and south poles are rotating and going.

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Speaker 1: The coil of inductive wire is then being exposed to

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Speaker 1: a fluctuating magnetic field that's going to induce current to

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Speaker 1: flow through the wire. Uh. That also, by the way,

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Speaker 1: generates its own electric field because you have electricity voltage

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Speaker 1: essentially applied to this, uh, this conductive wire. He's thinking

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Speaker 1: about the same sort of thing, but in a linear pathway.

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Speaker 1: So you've got this, uh, this electro magnetic force that

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Speaker 1: is pulling and pushing the capsule. You have opposite poles,

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Speaker 1: magnetic poles attracting one another that's pulling the capsule forward.

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Speaker 1: Then you have like poles pushing against each other that

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Speaker 1: continues to push the capsule forward. This allows you to

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Speaker 1: accelerate the capsule like a railgun. You're using the electro

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Speaker 1: magnetic force to accelerate it in a linear motion. So

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Speaker 1: it's going straight their bearings or what allow it to

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Speaker 1: have the lift. The electric motor allows it to have

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Speaker 1: the forward momentum, and this was kind of his general

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Speaker 1: idea for the infrastructure. As for the capsules themselves, his

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Speaker 1: version of it would seat twenty eight passengers per passenger capsule.

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Speaker 1: He had a couple of different models of capsule. He

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Speaker 1: also proposed a version that would have slightly larger capsules.

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Speaker 1: These would hold up to three full sized automobiles, and

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Speaker 1: you can have passengers inside the automobile, so you could

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Speaker 1: be sitting in a car inside a capsule, and that

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Speaker 1: way you would start in your car in l A

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Speaker 1: and then thirty five minutes later you'd drive out of

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Speaker 1: the capsule in San Francisco, which would save you a

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Speaker 1: ton of time from the normal five hours plus of driving. UH.

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Speaker 1: The maximum width for a passenger only capsule would be

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Speaker 1: four point four three feet or one point three five meters,

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Speaker 1: so not very wide, with a height of six point

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Speaker 1: one one feet or one one zero meters, so again

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Speaker 1: not very tall. If you're a tall person, you'd be

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Speaker 1: stooping a bit in order to move around this cabin.

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Speaker 1: UH doors would either be of a goal wing design,

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Speaker 1: meaning like the DeLorean, they lift up, or they would

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Speaker 1: be slides so that it would allow for easy uh

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Speaker 1: loading and unloading of the vehicle. Luggage would go on

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Speaker 1: one of the two ends of the vehicle, depending upon

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Speaker 1: where you would put the rest of the components, so

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Speaker 1: either in the very front or the very back, And

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Speaker 1: the weight of the passenger capsule without the interior components,

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Speaker 1: just the weight of all the external parts would be

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Speaker 1: about six thousand, eight hundred pounds or three thousand one ms,

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Speaker 1: and Musk estimated the cost for each capsule's exterior to

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Speaker 1: be about two hundred forty five thousand dollars apiece. Now,

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Speaker 1: all the stuff on the inside, like the seats, the

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Speaker 1: door panels, the restraints, the various displays, would weigh another

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Speaker 1: five thousand, five hundred pounds or two thousand, five hundred ms,

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Speaker 1: and it would cost another two hundred fifty five thousand dollars.

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Speaker 1: Then there are all the other elements that add to

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Speaker 1: the cost, such as the propulsion system components that would

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Speaker 1: be in each capsule, the air compressor blades, the air bearings,

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Speaker 1: all of this stuff. All of that told, Musk estimated

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Speaker 1: that a passenger only capsule would cost one million three

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Speaker 1: hundred fifty thousand dollars apiece and have a weight total

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Speaker 1: of fifteen thousand kilograms, And he goes on to estimate

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Speaker 1: that you need about fifty four million dollars to make

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Speaker 1: enough capsules for the hyper loop system he was proposing

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Speaker 1: between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Now that's enough capsules

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Speaker 1: where you would have them at either end so that

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Speaker 1: you could have a consistent UH service between the two

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Speaker 1: cities on any given day. So fifty four million dollars

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Speaker 1: for just the capsules, that's not too bad. However, that

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Speaker 1: doesn't include the cost of the infrastructure. Will get to

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Speaker 1: that if you were traveling on that route, helps safe

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Speaker 1: would it be? Well? Elon Musk, again arguing for the

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Speaker 1: system he was proposing, said that there would be a

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Speaker 1: lot of redundant safety features, including maintaining a healthy distance

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Speaker 1: between capsules. So between you and the next closest capsule

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Speaker 1: would be a gap of twenty three miles or thirty

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Speaker 1: seven kilometers on average, which is a lot of safety

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Speaker 1: space to prevent collisions between capsules. Still, tons of other

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Speaker 1: safety issues that you would have to take into account

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Speaker 1: and make sure we're UH prepared for. So that way

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Speaker 1: you don't have any massive issues. Now. According to Musk,

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Speaker 1: the hyper loop would allow for eight hundred forty passengers

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Speaker 1: to travel per hour between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

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Speaker 1: Now that number could be increased by decreasing the amount

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Speaker 1: of departure time between capsules. He was envisioning capsules arriving

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Speaker 1: at a station, unloading, loading up, and every two minutes

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Speaker 1: you would have a capsule leave either l A or

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Speaker 1: San Francisco. Now that that doesn't mean that a capsule

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Speaker 1: only spends two minutes per station. You would have one

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Speaker 1: station or one capsule arriving at a station while another capsule,

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Speaker 1: maybe three capsules ahead, is leaving, So you would still

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Speaker 1: have several minutes to unload and load each individual capsule

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Speaker 1: before it blasts off and heads over to its destination. Uh.

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Speaker 1: These capsules would be going pretty darn fast. Musk talks

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Speaker 1: about them hitting speeds of seven hundred sixty miles per

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Speaker 1: hour or one thousand, two hundred twenty kilometers per hour,

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Speaker 1: which is also known as mock point nine one at

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Speaker 1: sixty eight degrees fahrenheit or twenty degrees celsius. So you're

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Speaker 1: talking about going nearly as fast as the speed of sound,

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Speaker 1: but not actually breaking the sound barrier at that speed

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Speaker 1: at those temperatures. And again that offers me the opportunity

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Speaker 1: to remind you guys, sound travels through the air at

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Speaker 1: a speed that depends on other things like air temperature,

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Speaker 1: So you have to take that into account when you

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Speaker 1: talk about the speed of sound. It's not a constant

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Speaker 1: through all altitudes and temperatures. You have to have these

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Speaker 1: other variables in account before you can actually talk about

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Speaker 1: the speed of sound, although we can usually just assume

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Speaker 1: we're talking about a standard temperature when we're usually using

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Speaker 1: that term. Back to the show, At that speed, you

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Speaker 1: would be able to make the trip between Los Angeles

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Speaker 1: and San Francisco in about thirty five minutes, and the

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Speaker 1: high speed rail system would take two hours and thirty

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Speaker 1: eight minutes on that same trip. So the system that

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Speaker 1: Elon Musk was saying was inefficient, slow, and expensive would

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Speaker 1: take two hours thirty eight minutes. Driving takes five hours.

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Speaker 1: A plane trip would take a little bit more than

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Speaker 1: an hour, like an hour and fifteen minutes. So the

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Speaker 1: hyper loop would theoretically be the fastest way to get

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Speaker 1: from Los Angeles to San Francisco, assuming it works. The

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Speaker 1: way Elon Musk imagines, so thirty five minutes is a

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Speaker 1: huge amount of time saved going from point A to

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Speaker 1: point B. It would be the fastest solution by far.

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Speaker 1: You might wonder what it would be like to actually

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Speaker 1: travel inside one of those capsules. According to Musk, he

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Speaker 1: imagines that the entire interior would have displays, kind of

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Speaker 1: like television displays or computer displays that would show a landscape,

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Speaker 1: maybe a model of the landscape that you're actually passing through,

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Speaker 1: or maybe it would be something else like outer space

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Speaker 1: or under the water or some other city if you

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Speaker 1: wanted to, Or maybe it would just be television, because

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Speaker 1: there's no point in having windows your inside and enclosed tube.

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Speaker 1: All you would see is the interior of a tube

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Speaker 1: whizzing by at seven miles per hour. Using the displays

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Speaker 1: would help you get some other sensory input. Uh. There's

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Speaker 1: other interesting questions like would this affect your sense of

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Speaker 1: of your your perception of space, Like would you feel

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Speaker 1: an emotion sickness due to this kind of thing. Uh,

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Speaker 1: that's a question that I don't know the answer to

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Speaker 1: because as far as I know, no one's actually tried it.

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Speaker 1: But it is really interesting Now we've got a lot

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Speaker 1: more to talk about, uh, and I'm going to dive

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Speaker 1: into some more details about what travel aboard the hyper

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Speaker 1: loop would theoretically be like, as well as talk about

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Speaker 1: some of the companies that are trying to bring it

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Speaker 1: to life. But before I do that, let's take a

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Speaker 1: quick break to thank our sponsor. Now I just mentioned

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Speaker 1: about being inside those capsules and looking at those displays,

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Speaker 1: and you know, seeing some gorgeous stuff and and that

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Speaker 1: sounds really nice. You would have restraints on your your

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Speaker 1: seats because you're talking about accelerating too pretty incredible speeds

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Speaker 1: and then eventually decelerating. Now, the ideas that you would

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Speaker 1: do this gradually so you wouldn't be experiencing any very

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Speaker 1: powerful G forces. That would also mean that the tube

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Speaker 1: itself would not be able to have any sharp turns

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Speaker 1: on it because the amount of G force you would

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Speaker 1: experience as a passenger would be too great. You would

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Speaker 1: be very very much uncomfortable, if not blacking out due

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Speaker 1: to those G forces being placed on your body if

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Speaker 1: you were making sharp turns. So you'd have to have

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Speaker 1: very gradual curves to your hyper loop track, and you

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Speaker 1: would have to again have this long acceleration and deceleration

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Speaker 1: so that you're not placing too much stress on your passengers.

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Speaker 1: But let's go back to price for a minute. So

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Speaker 1: I talked about the capsules and that they would cost

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Speaker 1: a cool fifty four million dollars each. But what about

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Speaker 1: the tube itself, Well, Musk said it would be several

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Speaker 1: billion dollars. He eventually came up with the figure rough

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Speaker 1: Napkin figure of being six billion dollars for a hyper

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Speaker 1: loop system, but he adds that this would still be

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Speaker 1: less expensive than the high speed rail system that California

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Speaker 1: had approved. He said, Yeah, it's six billion dollars for

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Speaker 1: this hypothetical thing I just made up, but it's many

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Speaker 1: more billion dollars for this other thing that exists. So, um,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's it's kind of easy to say that

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Speaker 1: it's only six billion dollars, only six billion dollars, when

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Speaker 1: you have just proposed it and no one said to

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Speaker 1: actually build the thing yet. But let's just for argument's sake,

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Speaker 1: say that, in fact, it would cost six billion dollars

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Speaker 1: to build. Because I don't want to cast aspersions towards

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Speaker 1: Elon Musk. I'm just saying that until you build something,

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Speaker 1: you really can't say how much it was going to cost,

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Speaker 1: not with any real authority. It's only after you've built

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Speaker 1: it that you really understand the cost of it. The tube,

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Speaker 1: he says, would be made out of steel, and he

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Speaker 1: says that you could constructed and prefabricated sections and then

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Speaker 1: kind of snap them together, which is being a bit

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Speaker 1: flippant on my part. It actually would involve using an

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Speaker 1: orbital seam welder to create a seal between each length

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Speaker 1: of tube. So you would put in a prefabricated length

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Speaker 1: the tube, and then you would just seal it to

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Speaker 1: the previous one using this orbital uh seal welder which

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Speaker 1: kind of goes around the entire tube and make sure

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Speaker 1: that they are nice and tightly welded together. And he

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Speaker 1: also suggested that these tubes would rest on pylons, so

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Speaker 1: it would be an elevated track that would be above

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Speaker 1: or really to the side of Interstate five in California,

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Speaker 1: which was more or less a direct path between l

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Speaker 1: A and San Francisco without too many sharp turns. He

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Speaker 1: says that you would have to have a few deviations

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Speaker 1: from the highway in order to avoid putting too strong

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Speaker 1: a curve in the track. But those deviations would be

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Speaker 1: in his words, minor uh. That way, you could avoid

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Speaker 1: putting those unacceptable g forces on the bodies of your passengers, which,

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Speaker 1: as we have already discussed, would be a bad thing

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Speaker 1: to do otherwise. Musk also said that the energy needed

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Speaker 1: to power the hyper loop could come from solar panels

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Speaker 1: along the top of the tube. Now, according to Musk,

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Speaker 1: the panels would be enough would be able to generate

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Speaker 1: enough electricity to power the entire system and also charge

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Speaker 1: batteries that would allow the system to operate even if

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Speaker 1: the sun weren't out. So if it were an overcast day,

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Speaker 1: which is common in San Francisco, not necessarily so in

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Speaker 1: Los Angeles, or if it were nighttime, you can still

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Speaker 1: take the system from LA to San Francisco, or San

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Speaker 1: Francis Cisco to l A, because you'd have enough battery

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Speaker 1: power to keep it going. This is one of the

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Speaker 1: reasons why he was arguing for this air bearing system.

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Speaker 1: He said the air bearing system would be less expensive

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Speaker 1: than a fully electro magnetic mag lev system, and it

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Speaker 1: would consume less power than a mag lev system, so

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Speaker 1: you wouldn't have to worry about creating a huge drain

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Speaker 1: on the existing power grid. You could have it all

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Speaker 1: self powered through these solar panels and batteries. Keep in mind,

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Speaker 1: Elon Musk again is behind Tesla, and Tesla's big product

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Speaker 1: that's coming out aren't really electric cars. I mean, that's

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Speaker 1: the flashy side. It's really the battery solutions that Elon

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Speaker 1: Musk is behind. So are wing for a system that

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Speaker 1: would rely heavily on battery power also serves his interests

433
00:26:04,560 --> 00:26:09,119
Speaker 1: to some extent. In his paper, Musk argued that the

434
00:26:09,280 --> 00:26:13,720
Speaker 1: energy per passenger using the hyperlop technology would be less

435
00:26:13,720 --> 00:26:18,520
Speaker 1: than any other form of transportation. Travel by airplane would

436
00:26:18,560 --> 00:26:22,680
Speaker 1: represent the greatest amount of energy expended per traveler per mile,

437
00:26:23,200 --> 00:26:26,359
Speaker 1: So he was saying the hyperlop, based on his calculations,

438
00:26:27,080 --> 00:26:29,960
Speaker 1: would end up being less of an energy drain per

439
00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:35,400
Speaker 1: person per passenger than anything else that includes cars, motorcycles, trains,

440
00:26:35,840 --> 00:26:39,480
Speaker 1: any other system in existence would be more energy per

441
00:26:39,520 --> 00:26:41,680
Speaker 1: passenger to get people from point A to point B

442
00:26:42,720 --> 00:26:47,440
Speaker 1: compared to his hypothetical hyper loop. And I keep saying

443
00:26:47,520 --> 00:26:50,280
Speaker 1: hypothetical and things of that nature, again not to disparage

444
00:26:50,280 --> 00:26:52,960
Speaker 1: the idea, but just to acknowledge the fact that without

445
00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:58,560
Speaker 1: an actual working system where we're relying upon theoreticals, hypotheticals,

446
00:26:58,560 --> 00:27:01,119
Speaker 1: We're not relying upon actual hard data that we can

447
00:27:01,160 --> 00:27:03,280
Speaker 1: look at and say, oh yeah, in fact, the math

448
00:27:03,400 --> 00:27:08,960
Speaker 1: does work out the right way. Uh. Due to this

449
00:27:09,119 --> 00:27:12,119
Speaker 1: low cost of operation, Musk says that you can charge

450
00:27:12,119 --> 00:27:14,960
Speaker 1: a very reasonable price for tickets on the hyper loop.

451
00:27:15,119 --> 00:27:19,160
Speaker 1: His suggestion for a one way ticket from Los Angeles

452
00:27:19,240 --> 00:27:23,600
Speaker 1: to San Francisco or vice versa, would be twenty dollars

453
00:27:23,640 --> 00:27:26,280
Speaker 1: for a thirty five minute trip between the two cities.

454
00:27:26,560 --> 00:27:29,600
Speaker 1: He says charging twenty dollars per ticket for twenty years

455
00:27:29,640 --> 00:27:33,199
Speaker 1: would offset the six billion dollar estimated cost of constructing

456
00:27:33,200 --> 00:27:37,120
Speaker 1: the whole shebang, which is pretty incredible. I mean, it's

457
00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:39,400
Speaker 1: making a lot of assumptions again that you would have

458
00:27:39,560 --> 00:27:44,840
Speaker 1: enough of a passenger base to be busy and charge

459
00:27:44,840 --> 00:27:47,480
Speaker 1: at twenty dollars, and that you're patient enough to take

460
00:27:47,520 --> 00:27:51,520
Speaker 1: twenty years to pay off this investment. But if it's correct,

461
00:27:51,720 --> 00:27:54,800
Speaker 1: that is amazing. Twenty dollars would be a steal compared

462
00:27:54,840 --> 00:27:57,359
Speaker 1: to an airplane ticket or even a ticket on the

463
00:27:57,400 --> 00:28:00,959
Speaker 1: California Train, because that high speed rail train they were

464
00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:04,240
Speaker 1: talking about much more expensive tickets than twenty bucks a

465
00:28:04,320 --> 00:28:10,840
Speaker 1: person for a one way ticket. Uh. Again, without having

466
00:28:11,040 --> 00:28:14,600
Speaker 1: all of the math done, we can't be sure that

467
00:28:14,720 --> 00:28:18,320
Speaker 1: twenty years would be enough time to recapture the cost

468
00:28:18,440 --> 00:28:21,800
Speaker 1: of construction. I don't know if that also builds in

469
00:28:21,920 --> 00:28:26,360
Speaker 1: any potential maintenance costs that surely would come up over

470
00:28:26,400 --> 00:28:30,040
Speaker 1: those times, but he claimed that twenty dollars a seat

471
00:28:30,359 --> 00:28:33,280
Speaker 1: that would do it. A couple of notable companies have

472
00:28:33,359 --> 00:28:36,080
Speaker 1: formed to try and bring this vision to life, and

473
00:28:36,160 --> 00:28:39,000
Speaker 1: one of those is hyper Loop One. So let's take

474
00:28:39,040 --> 00:28:42,200
Speaker 1: some time to talk about this company because it's got

475
00:28:42,280 --> 00:28:46,960
Speaker 1: some stories behind it. So there's an entrepreneur named Shervin

476
00:28:47,120 --> 00:28:51,600
Speaker 1: Pishamar who first talked to Musk in January two thousand thirteen.

477
00:28:51,640 --> 00:28:56,240
Speaker 1: I remember it was August when Musk announced this idea

478
00:28:56,440 --> 00:28:59,520
Speaker 1: of the hyper loop and they were traveling to Cuba

479
00:28:59,520 --> 00:29:03,400
Speaker 1: and apparent Lee. During this trip, Musk talked about this

480
00:29:03,480 --> 00:29:07,880
Speaker 1: hyper loop concept and Servin was really interested in it,

481
00:29:08,320 --> 00:29:11,840
Speaker 1: and he even said later on that Musk should go

482
00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:16,040
Speaker 1: public with this idea. So, according to the hyper Loop

483
00:29:16,080 --> 00:29:20,120
Speaker 1: one web page, it was Servin who convinced Elon Musk

484
00:29:20,240 --> 00:29:24,320
Speaker 1: to publish that white paper and talk about this after

485
00:29:24,440 --> 00:29:28,120
Speaker 1: Musk's announcement, Servin gathered a team together to form the

486
00:29:28,160 --> 00:29:30,880
Speaker 1: startup hyper Loop one. Now, if you go to hyper

487
00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:33,400
Speaker 1: Loop one's website and you look at this team and

488
00:29:33,520 --> 00:29:37,440
Speaker 1: includes some names on there, there's Jim Messina, there's Joe Lonsdale,

489
00:29:37,840 --> 00:29:42,280
Speaker 1: David Sachs, and Peter Diamandis. But there's one name you

490
00:29:42,360 --> 00:29:45,200
Speaker 1: will not find on the hyper Loop one website, but

491
00:29:45,360 --> 00:29:48,920
Speaker 1: he was among the founders, and that's the name Brogan

492
00:29:49,120 --> 00:29:54,640
Speaker 1: bam Brogan. So Brogan Bam Brogan, formally known as Kevin Brogan,

493
00:29:55,080 --> 00:29:59,000
Speaker 1: was an engineer who worked at SpaceX and of course

494
00:29:59,040 --> 00:30:02,320
Speaker 1: that's the private space exploration company. He married a woman

495
00:30:02,400 --> 00:30:06,320
Speaker 1: named Bambi Lieu In. The two decided that they would

496
00:30:06,320 --> 00:30:09,840
Speaker 1: merge their names together, so it was kind of forming

497
00:30:09,880 --> 00:30:12,680
Speaker 1: a new name by combining their names. That's where he

498
00:30:12,760 --> 00:30:18,000
Speaker 1: got Brogan bam Brogan, which I think is endurable. And

499
00:30:18,080 --> 00:30:21,560
Speaker 1: he became the chief technology officer for hyper Loop one.

500
00:30:21,960 --> 00:30:26,080
Speaker 1: But then things seem to go very wrong, and we

501
00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:28,360
Speaker 1: don't know the full story, but we do know about

502
00:30:28,400 --> 00:30:30,840
Speaker 1: the lawsuits, so I can tell you what the lawsuit said.

503
00:30:31,240 --> 00:30:33,720
Speaker 1: According to bam Brogan and a few of his colleagues,

504
00:30:34,240 --> 00:30:38,000
Speaker 1: things went sour at the corporate level at hyper Loop one,

505
00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:41,640
Speaker 1: so you've got this company that is trying to create

506
00:30:41,720 --> 00:30:45,160
Speaker 1: the actual technology that Elon Musk was talking about. Meanwhile,

507
00:30:45,400 --> 00:30:48,480
Speaker 1: according to bam Brogan, there were some shenanigans going on

508
00:30:48,520 --> 00:30:52,840
Speaker 1: at the corporate level. He alleged that the company leaders

509
00:30:52,880 --> 00:30:57,000
Speaker 1: were being wasteful, that they were blowing through investor money

510
00:30:57,080 --> 00:31:00,360
Speaker 1: on things that weren't necessary, or that we're fraud gialant

511
00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:05,000
Speaker 1: in his eyes. And he also claimed that the corporate

512
00:31:05,080 --> 00:31:08,160
Speaker 1: leadership was engaging in nepotism, that they were hiring on

513
00:31:08,440 --> 00:31:12,720
Speaker 1: friends and family for things that they weren't necessarily qualified for,

514
00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:16,160
Speaker 1: or that there might have been more qualified candidates out

515
00:31:16,160 --> 00:31:19,280
Speaker 1: there that were being ignored in favor of these folks.

516
00:31:19,720 --> 00:31:23,160
Speaker 1: He also accused Pischavar of using stock options as leverage

517
00:31:23,200 --> 00:31:26,280
Speaker 1: to get what he wanted from employees, essentially holding it

518
00:31:26,320 --> 00:31:29,640
Speaker 1: over their heads. Uh as both a stick and a

519
00:31:29,680 --> 00:31:32,400
Speaker 1: carrot at the same time. So, in other words, these

520
00:31:32,440 --> 00:31:36,200
Speaker 1: were a whole series of really ugly all allegations and accusations.

521
00:31:36,440 --> 00:31:38,320
Speaker 1: Beam Brogan then says that he and some of his

522
00:31:38,400 --> 00:31:42,440
Speaker 1: colleagues voiced their objections and concerns and then they were

523
00:31:42,480 --> 00:31:46,640
Speaker 1: all met with repercussions they were met with punishments. Beam

524
00:31:46,720 --> 00:31:49,520
Speaker 1: Brogan was met with a threatening gesture. Specifically, he says

525
00:31:49,560 --> 00:31:53,440
Speaker 1: that Pischavar left a rope nodded in a noose on

526
00:31:53,560 --> 00:31:57,880
Speaker 1: bam Brogan's desk, and there's some security footage that seemed

527
00:31:57,880 --> 00:32:01,400
Speaker 1: to potentially back up bam Brogan's accusation. There's a man

528
00:32:01,960 --> 00:32:05,920
Speaker 1: who you know, they say was pishamr and he's clearly

529
00:32:05,920 --> 00:32:08,440
Speaker 1: holding some rope, although you can't necessarily see if it's

530
00:32:08,520 --> 00:32:11,360
Speaker 1: a noose or not, but still, if that is true,

531
00:32:11,960 --> 00:32:15,800
Speaker 1: it's a pretty ugly move of intimidation. It's not your

532
00:32:15,800 --> 00:32:19,960
Speaker 1: typical corporate behavior unless you're salesperson trying to move property

533
00:32:19,960 --> 00:32:24,880
Speaker 1: in Glengarry Glenn Ross style. Always be closing guys, always

534
00:32:24,920 --> 00:32:27,960
Speaker 1: be closing well. Ben Brogan then said that one of

535
00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:30,640
Speaker 1: his colleagues was fired in front of his own family

536
00:32:30,720 --> 00:32:33,800
Speaker 1: the next day and another one was demoted, and that

537
00:32:33,880 --> 00:32:36,600
Speaker 1: bam Brogan himself was encouraged to take a leave of

538
00:32:36,640 --> 00:32:39,800
Speaker 1: absence from the company, so he responded with a lawsuit.

539
00:32:40,720 --> 00:32:44,600
Speaker 1: Hyper Loop One's response was also accusatory. The company lawyer

540
00:32:44,640 --> 00:32:48,760
Speaker 1: said that the lawsuit was quote unfortunate and delusional end quote,

541
00:32:49,040 --> 00:32:51,960
Speaker 1: and also claimed that bam Brogan had been trying to

542
00:32:52,160 --> 00:32:55,240
Speaker 1: undermine Pischamar and was actually trying to do a corporate

543
00:32:55,320 --> 00:32:59,920
Speaker 1: coup and and change the leadership through some other form

544
00:33:00,040 --> 00:33:03,719
Speaker 1: of corporate leverage, and so there were accusations flying on

545
00:33:03,760 --> 00:33:07,040
Speaker 1: both sides. Now, in November twenty sixteen, news broke that

546
00:33:07,080 --> 00:33:09,640
Speaker 1: the two parties had settled this lawsuit out of court

547
00:33:10,120 --> 00:33:14,760
Speaker 1: for uh an unreported sum, so no one was talking

548
00:33:14,800 --> 00:33:18,280
Speaker 1: about how much money changed hands. According to a statement

549
00:33:18,280 --> 00:33:22,400
Speaker 1: from bam Brogan's lawyers, uh It's said this quote, My

550
00:33:22,560 --> 00:33:25,520
Speaker 1: clients are pleased to announce they have reached a confidential

551
00:33:25,560 --> 00:33:28,960
Speaker 1: resolution of litigation with their former employer and look forward

552
00:33:28,960 --> 00:33:33,000
Speaker 1: to moving on with their future plans end quote. Bam Brogan,

553
00:33:33,120 --> 00:33:36,400
Speaker 1: by the way, recently founded his own company called Arrivo,

554
00:33:36,600 --> 00:33:39,920
Speaker 1: with its headquarters apparently less than one mile away from

555
00:33:40,000 --> 00:33:43,080
Speaker 1: hyper Loop one's offices, So that's got to be awkward

556
00:33:43,120 --> 00:33:46,000
Speaker 1: if you're ever in traffic. Arrivo is also in the

557
00:33:46,120 --> 00:33:48,960
Speaker 1: hyper loop design game, so they're getting in that space.

558
00:33:49,000 --> 00:33:52,040
Speaker 1: According to bam Brogan, his new company has a quote

559
00:33:52,240 --> 00:33:55,840
Speaker 1: unique take end quote on the hyper loop concept. No

560
00:33:55,920 --> 00:33:59,120
Speaker 1: idea what that means. Meanwhile, back at hyper Loop one,

561
00:33:59,200 --> 00:34:02,240
Speaker 1: the company was installing a They installed a fifty ft long,

562
00:34:02,280 --> 00:34:05,680
Speaker 1: twelve ft wide structure called the Big Tube. Now this

563
00:34:05,760 --> 00:34:08,800
Speaker 1: was not a hyperloop tube. It was a testing facility.

564
00:34:08,840 --> 00:34:11,959
Speaker 1: It was meant to create low pressure environments to test

565
00:34:12,000 --> 00:34:16,719
Speaker 1: things like seals in test tracks, test tubes. Not a

566
00:34:16,719 --> 00:34:19,880
Speaker 1: test tube, but a tube that they were testing to

567
00:34:19,920 --> 00:34:22,680
Speaker 1: make sure that it was constructed properly. So it was

568
00:34:22,719 --> 00:34:25,200
Speaker 1: a testing facility, not a hyper loop tube on its own.

569
00:34:25,920 --> 00:34:28,640
Speaker 1: And the hyper loop one approach doesn't use air bearings

570
00:34:28,640 --> 00:34:31,959
Speaker 1: the way Musk's design did. Instead, it did use mag

571
00:34:32,080 --> 00:34:34,600
Speaker 1: lev as the means to suspend capsules in the tube,

572
00:34:34,640 --> 00:34:38,719
Speaker 1: so they went with the electromagnetic levitation route. Uh so

573
00:34:38,840 --> 00:34:41,680
Speaker 1: it requires a bit more power, more than a bit

574
00:34:41,719 --> 00:34:45,400
Speaker 1: more power than the hyperloop one or hyperloop concept that

575
00:34:45,440 --> 00:34:49,880
Speaker 1: Elon Musk was first chatting about back in In December,

576
00:34:50,640 --> 00:34:53,920
Speaker 1: hyper Loop one built the APEX Test and Safety site

577
00:34:54,600 --> 00:34:57,640
Speaker 1: outside of Las Vegas, Nevada that would become the testing

578
00:34:57,680 --> 00:35:03,840
Speaker 1: ground for prototype hyperloop infrastructure and capsules, and on May eleven, sixteen,

579
00:35:03,880 --> 00:35:07,040
Speaker 1: the company hosted a Propulsion System Open Air test or

580
00:35:07,160 --> 00:35:12,080
Speaker 1: p o a t POPE or poe AT. In this test,

581
00:35:12,080 --> 00:35:14,279
Speaker 1: a hyper loop sled accelerating to a top speed of

582
00:35:14,280 --> 00:35:16,680
Speaker 1: a hundred thirty six miles per hour in two point

583
00:35:16,760 --> 00:35:20,719
Speaker 1: two seconds. That's an incredible acceleration. The test was to

584
00:35:20,760 --> 00:35:23,120
Speaker 1: see if the acceleration motor would work properly, so they

585
00:35:23,120 --> 00:35:25,520
Speaker 1: weren't trying to accelerate up to top speed. A hundred

586
00:35:25,520 --> 00:35:27,759
Speaker 1: thirty six miles per hour is nowhere close to the

587
00:35:27,800 --> 00:35:31,080
Speaker 1: top speed of what their capsules would ultimately take. The

588
00:35:31,120 --> 00:35:33,839
Speaker 1: company also announced a global challenge to find the best

589
00:35:33,880 --> 00:35:37,400
Speaker 1: hyperloop projects in the world. Hyper Loop one has proposed

590
00:35:37,400 --> 00:35:40,239
Speaker 1: a system that would link Helsinki and Stockholm together, which

591
00:35:40,280 --> 00:35:43,880
Speaker 1: would be pretty nifty, and in August seen the company

592
00:35:43,920 --> 00:35:48,000
Speaker 1: began construction on the Development Loop or devl loop in Nevada.

593
00:35:48,280 --> 00:35:51,840
Speaker 1: This was the first full scale hyperloop test track, and

594
00:35:51,920 --> 00:35:55,399
Speaker 1: November of twenty sixteen, the first section of the devl

595
00:35:55,400 --> 00:35:59,240
Speaker 1: loop was installed. It was called Fixity, and in January

596
00:36:00,440 --> 00:36:04,000
Speaker 1: hyper loop announced that thirty five semifinalists had been uh

597
00:36:04,320 --> 00:36:07,759
Speaker 1: had been had reached the global challenge, so they got

598
00:36:07,760 --> 00:36:10,560
Speaker 1: down to thirty five semifinalists and these were proposals that

599
00:36:10,600 --> 00:36:13,840
Speaker 1: would link various cities together to create hyper loop routes.

600
00:36:14,440 --> 00:36:18,759
Speaker 1: On March seventh, seventeen, the DEVL loop construction was completed,

601
00:36:19,080 --> 00:36:22,400
Speaker 1: and on May twelve, seventeen, the first full scale hyperloop

602
00:36:22,480 --> 00:36:28,040
Speaker 1: test was conducted. On July twelve, seventeen, Hyperloop unveiled a

603
00:36:28,120 --> 00:36:31,000
Speaker 1: prototype aero shell. This is the outer hall of the

604
00:36:31,040 --> 00:36:33,040
Speaker 1: capsules that would be in its system, and it's kind

605
00:36:33,040 --> 00:36:34,840
Speaker 1: of nifty looking. You should take a look at the

606
00:36:34,880 --> 00:36:37,400
Speaker 1: picture of it. Sadly, this is an audio podcast and

607
00:36:37,440 --> 00:36:42,920
Speaker 1: I cannot show you one. On July seventeen, they tested

608
00:36:42,960 --> 00:36:45,000
Speaker 1: out a vehicle that traveled down the full length of

609
00:36:45,040 --> 00:36:48,799
Speaker 1: the five DEVL loop track, accelerating for three and then

610
00:36:48,800 --> 00:36:51,600
Speaker 1: gliding the rest of the way again at fives. You're

611
00:36:51,600 --> 00:36:53,920
Speaker 1: not going to get to your full speed, you just can't,

612
00:36:53,960 --> 00:36:56,920
Speaker 1: but you can test out the various systems to make

613
00:36:56,960 --> 00:36:59,880
Speaker 1: sure that the concept behind them does in fact war.

614
00:37:00,760 --> 00:37:04,319
Speaker 1: The company wants to have three production systems working by one,

615
00:37:04,400 --> 00:37:08,680
Speaker 1: which is pretty ambitious. So hyper Loop one is probably

616
00:37:08,719 --> 00:37:12,000
Speaker 1: the furthest along out of all the different hyper loop companies,

617
00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:16,000
Speaker 1: and it inadvertently spawned a second one or EVO, but

618
00:37:16,080 --> 00:37:18,200
Speaker 1: it is not the only one. There are other hyper

619
00:37:18,200 --> 00:37:21,680
Speaker 1: loop companies out there, and they're all competing at this

620
00:37:21,760 --> 00:37:24,719
Speaker 1: I'll talk about another one in just a second, called

621
00:37:24,800 --> 00:37:29,520
Speaker 1: hyperloop transportation technologies. And it's really interesting to see people

622
00:37:29,600 --> 00:37:33,800
Speaker 1: jump on this again in an area that hasn't had

623
00:37:34,040 --> 00:37:38,759
Speaker 1: proven success. That's not to discourage them, but it kind

624
00:37:38,800 --> 00:37:43,239
Speaker 1: of shows how Elon Musk has this amazing ability to

625
00:37:43,360 --> 00:37:47,520
Speaker 1: inspire people to take chances without necessarily being able to

626
00:37:47,520 --> 00:37:50,520
Speaker 1: show that you can have a return on them. People

627
00:37:50,600 --> 00:37:55,760
Speaker 1: have talked about Tesla Motors struggling to be profitable while

628
00:37:55,800 --> 00:37:59,600
Speaker 1: they are clearly creating products and people have a strong

629
00:37:59,640 --> 00:38:02,720
Speaker 1: desire or to own them. The company as it stands

630
00:38:03,400 --> 00:38:07,800
Speaker 1: is one of those that is always striving for profit

631
00:38:08,000 --> 00:38:12,200
Speaker 1: but hasn't emerged as an enormously profitable company. So for

632
00:38:12,280 --> 00:38:14,520
Speaker 1: Elon must to continue to go forward and make these

633
00:38:14,520 --> 00:38:17,600
Speaker 1: bold proclamations and have people not just take it to heart,

634
00:38:17,920 --> 00:38:21,319
Speaker 1: but then pour their own money and investments and resources

635
00:38:21,360 --> 00:38:24,440
Speaker 1: into trying to make it come to pass. That's a

636
00:38:24,840 --> 00:38:30,839
Speaker 1: pretty insanely awesome thing to be able to do. Uh.

637
00:38:31,200 --> 00:38:35,279
Speaker 1: I can't convince people to give me a seat on

638
00:38:35,320 --> 00:38:39,160
Speaker 1: the subway. So although I find that if I talk

639
00:38:39,280 --> 00:38:42,719
Speaker 1: to myself a lot and argue, I often end up

640
00:38:43,000 --> 00:38:46,440
Speaker 1: with a seat all to myself, but I think that

641
00:38:46,520 --> 00:38:49,400
Speaker 1: might require that doesn't rely so much on charisma as

642
00:38:49,400 --> 00:38:54,160
Speaker 1: it does just social awkwardness. All Right, when we get back,

643
00:38:54,480 --> 00:38:58,359
Speaker 1: I'm gonna talk a little bit about hyper loop uh more,

644
00:38:58,440 --> 00:39:00,920
Speaker 1: you know, the hyper loop transportation technol alogies, as well

645
00:39:00,960 --> 00:39:04,799
Speaker 1: as Elon Musk's attempt to get into the hyper loop

646
00:39:04,840 --> 00:39:08,400
Speaker 1: game himself. But I really wanted to cover that weird

647
00:39:08,480 --> 00:39:10,960
Speaker 1: controversy of hyper loop one first and get that out

648
00:39:10,960 --> 00:39:13,600
Speaker 1: of the way. We'll come back in just a moment,

649
00:39:13,640 --> 00:39:23,840
Speaker 1: but first, let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor. Okay,

650
00:39:23,960 --> 00:39:27,280
Speaker 1: let's talk about hyper loop transportation technologies for a second.

651
00:39:27,280 --> 00:39:29,480
Speaker 1: This is, like I said, was the other big startup

652
00:39:29,560 --> 00:39:34,480
Speaker 1: to come out shortly after Elon Musk's announcement. Arriva was

653
00:39:34,520 --> 00:39:37,320
Speaker 1: new to the scene, but hyper loop transportation technologies and

654
00:39:37,400 --> 00:39:40,480
Speaker 1: hyper Loop one have been around for a while. So

655
00:39:40,719 --> 00:39:43,279
Speaker 1: this company is also using mag lev technology, but in

656
00:39:43,320 --> 00:39:47,640
Speaker 1: this case it's passive mag lev, not active mag lev.

657
00:39:47,760 --> 00:39:50,720
Speaker 1: Now that means that part of the system, the system

658
00:39:50,719 --> 00:39:55,560
Speaker 1: that would actually be lining the the tubes is just

659
00:39:56,000 --> 00:40:01,160
Speaker 1: unmpowered coils of conductive wire, and so you're not putting

660
00:40:01,200 --> 00:40:03,560
Speaker 1: any electricity through them and are not acting as electro

661
00:40:03,640 --> 00:40:07,600
Speaker 1: magnets on their own. UH. This method was pioneered by

662
00:40:07,600 --> 00:40:11,600
Speaker 1: a physicist named Richard Post and the concept itself ends

663
00:40:11,680 --> 00:40:14,239
Speaker 1: up getting a little complicated, so I'm not going to

664
00:40:14,360 --> 00:40:16,920
Speaker 1: dive too far into it because it would require almost

665
00:40:16,920 --> 00:40:19,960
Speaker 1: a full episode all on its own. But basically, what

666
00:40:20,120 --> 00:40:23,840
Speaker 1: you have are these various coils of conductive wire, and

667
00:40:23,880 --> 00:40:26,400
Speaker 1: then you take these magnets and you put them in

668
00:40:26,440 --> 00:40:30,880
Speaker 1: a specific configuration so that their polls are lined up

669
00:40:30,880 --> 00:40:33,840
Speaker 1: in a very specific way with respect to one another.

670
00:40:34,800 --> 00:40:36,920
Speaker 1: And I'm I'm glossing over this because again, to get

671
00:40:36,960 --> 00:40:39,840
Speaker 1: into real details, we'd have to dive into physics pretty deeply.

672
00:40:40,600 --> 00:40:45,160
Speaker 1: If you pass this array of magnets over the coils

673
00:40:45,200 --> 00:40:49,640
Speaker 1: of conductive wire, it induces uh a charge to flow

674
00:40:49,760 --> 00:40:54,000
Speaker 1: through those those coils, and that in turn creates an

675
00:40:54,000 --> 00:40:56,640
Speaker 1: electromagnetic field. The key to this is you have to

676
00:40:56,719 --> 00:40:59,480
Speaker 1: get the capsule up to a certain speed before this

677
00:40:59,520 --> 00:41:02,200
Speaker 1: will have But once you do get to that speed,

678
00:41:02,760 --> 00:41:07,080
Speaker 1: then you are able to achieve magnetic levitation with a

679
00:41:07,080 --> 00:41:10,160
Speaker 1: passive system, so you don't have to send any electricity

680
00:41:10,160 --> 00:41:12,839
Speaker 1: through that that those coils of wire that would line

681
00:41:12,880 --> 00:41:16,120
Speaker 1: the the hyperloop tube that means that you're saving a

682
00:41:16,120 --> 00:41:20,200
Speaker 1: lot on energy. You just have to have the right

683
00:41:20,880 --> 00:41:24,600
Speaker 1: uh systems aboard the actual capsule, but you don't have

684
00:41:24,680 --> 00:41:28,879
Speaker 1: to power the whole tube itself, so that cuts down

685
00:41:28,880 --> 00:41:31,600
Speaker 1: on your electricity needs. It also cuts down on the

686
00:41:31,640 --> 00:41:35,400
Speaker 1: cost of operation, so you end up being able to

687
00:41:35,400 --> 00:41:40,560
Speaker 1: pass the savings onto maybe the consumer, or maybe you're

688
00:41:40,600 --> 00:41:44,520
Speaker 1: just pocketing a whole lot of extra profit. But it's

689
00:41:44,520 --> 00:41:48,919
Speaker 1: a really cool form of magnetic levitation. Uh. The cool

690
00:41:48,960 --> 00:41:51,000
Speaker 1: thing about it also is that in the case of

691
00:41:51,040 --> 00:41:53,600
Speaker 1: some sort of problem that there is some sort of

692
00:41:53,640 --> 00:41:58,920
Speaker 1: power loss on board the capsule. For example, the the

693
00:41:58,960 --> 00:42:02,160
Speaker 1: capsule will start to cope and it once it dips

694
00:42:02,239 --> 00:42:07,120
Speaker 1: below a certain speed a threshold, then it will not

695
00:42:07,200 --> 00:42:12,319
Speaker 1: be able to create the electro magnetic field or won't

696
00:42:12,360 --> 00:42:15,680
Speaker 1: be able to induce the electromagnetic field from these coils

697
00:42:15,680 --> 00:42:19,799
Speaker 1: of wire, and the capsule will come to arrest on

698
00:42:19,880 --> 00:42:22,799
Speaker 1: the bottom of the tube floor. So in a way,

699
00:42:22,840 --> 00:42:25,680
Speaker 1: it's kind of a safety measure because in a catastrophic failure,

700
00:42:26,239 --> 00:42:28,799
Speaker 1: the capsules are all going to slow down on their

701
00:42:28,800 --> 00:42:32,879
Speaker 1: own and then gradually come to arrest because just by

702
00:42:32,960 --> 00:42:36,360
Speaker 1: the act of slowing down, they can no longer remain

703
00:42:36,520 --> 00:42:42,000
Speaker 1: above the tube floor hyperloops. Hyper Loop Technologies leadership team

704
00:42:42,080 --> 00:42:44,920
Speaker 1: includes Dirk all Born who is a co founder of

705
00:42:45,000 --> 00:42:50,040
Speaker 1: jump Starter Incorporated, and Bebop g Gresta, who is another entrepreneur,

706
00:42:50,200 --> 00:42:52,920
Speaker 1: and both of them have extensive experience in starting and

707
00:42:52,960 --> 00:42:55,759
Speaker 1: funding ventures, so these are people who are used to

708
00:42:55,880 --> 00:43:00,680
Speaker 1: starting up big companies or getting funding for big companies.

709
00:43:01,400 --> 00:43:05,400
Speaker 1: They have agreements with lots of different cities, including cities

710
00:43:05,440 --> 00:43:09,840
Speaker 1: in South Korea, in Indonesia and France, In Czech Republic,

711
00:43:10,760 --> 00:43:14,680
Speaker 1: in the UH, they have an agreement with Abu Dhabi UH.

712
00:43:14,719 --> 00:43:18,520
Speaker 1: There's an agreement in Slovakia all to construct hyperloop systems

713
00:43:18,560 --> 00:43:20,560
Speaker 1: in the future. But all of this is really early

714
00:43:20,640 --> 00:43:26,799
Speaker 1: on obviously, so it's the earliest phases of the hyperloop

715
00:43:26,880 --> 00:43:32,280
Speaker 1: game from that aspect. Now recently, as of the recording

716
00:43:32,280 --> 00:43:37,759
Speaker 1: of this podcast, Elon Musk has actually decided to get

717
00:43:37,840 --> 00:43:41,000
Speaker 1: into this game himself. So when he first announced this

718
00:43:41,040 --> 00:43:43,120
Speaker 1: back in two thousand thirteen, he did so as it

719
00:43:43,400 --> 00:43:47,200
Speaker 1: as an open source project, meaning that he was allowing

720
00:43:47,239 --> 00:43:50,799
Speaker 1: anyone to take this idea and run with it and

721
00:43:51,000 --> 00:43:53,279
Speaker 1: alter it in any way they wanted to in order

722
00:43:53,320 --> 00:43:56,120
Speaker 1: to build the sort of systems that he had in mind.

723
00:43:57,000 --> 00:43:59,799
Speaker 1: So he was saying, look, I've got this great idea,

724
00:43:59,840 --> 00:44:02,000
Speaker 1: but don't have time for this. I'm going to space

725
00:44:02,080 --> 00:44:07,080
Speaker 1: and putting people in electric vehicles and other stuff. Being

726
00:44:07,080 --> 00:44:10,680
Speaker 1: an international man of mystery, perhaps I don't know. I

727
00:44:10,719 --> 00:44:12,680
Speaker 1: don't have time to get into this as well, so

728
00:44:12,719 --> 00:44:14,920
Speaker 1: someone else do it. Well, now he's saying, you know what,

729
00:44:14,960 --> 00:44:18,960
Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna do this, And he has said

730
00:44:19,000 --> 00:44:22,319
Speaker 1: that he's getting into this as well. And in fact,

731
00:44:22,400 --> 00:44:27,080
Speaker 1: SpaceX has been working on building out a tube that

732
00:44:27,200 --> 00:44:30,719
Speaker 1: would be not not quite hyperlop, but is sort of

733
00:44:30,760 --> 00:44:34,920
Speaker 1: a stepping stone toward hyperloop technologies, and they've talked about

734
00:44:34,960 --> 00:44:38,520
Speaker 1: also building a hyper loop test facility in Texas. So

735
00:44:39,080 --> 00:44:43,040
Speaker 1: part of this involves a new company that Elon Musk announced,

736
00:44:43,080 --> 00:44:48,120
Speaker 1: the TBC Company or the Boring Company insert tons of

737
00:44:48,239 --> 00:44:51,799
Speaker 1: pun jokes here. The boring Company in this case does

738
00:44:51,840 --> 00:44:54,480
Speaker 1: not mean a company that is uninteresting and we'll put

739
00:44:54,480 --> 00:44:57,520
Speaker 1: you to sleep, although it may also do that. It

740
00:44:57,600 --> 00:45:00,160
Speaker 1: is talking about a company that bores holes in to

741
00:45:00,280 --> 00:45:05,000
Speaker 1: the earth or tunneling purposes, so it uses boring machines,

742
00:45:05,360 --> 00:45:09,480
Speaker 1: machines that bore a hole into the ground so that

743
00:45:09,560 --> 00:45:12,960
Speaker 1: you can build out tunnels. Now. They didn't build the

744
00:45:13,000 --> 00:45:16,440
Speaker 1: boring machines. They bought them. In fact, as far as

745
00:45:16,480 --> 00:45:18,600
Speaker 1: I know, they only have one right now, and it

746
00:45:18,640 --> 00:45:22,960
Speaker 1: is named good And they decided to name their machines

747
00:45:24,280 --> 00:45:29,400
Speaker 1: after literary characters and figures, so Goodo being from Beckett's

748
00:45:29,440 --> 00:45:32,799
Speaker 1: play Waiting for Godot and Uh. I don't know if

749
00:45:32,840 --> 00:45:35,840
Speaker 1: that's a commentary about literature, about whether or not literature

750
00:45:35,920 --> 00:45:38,440
Speaker 1: is supposed to be boring. I hope it isn't. I

751
00:45:38,520 --> 00:45:40,719
Speaker 1: was a literature major in college, and I would find

752
00:45:40,760 --> 00:45:44,120
Speaker 1: that deeply insulting. Not that I think Elon Musk would

753
00:45:44,160 --> 00:45:47,560
Speaker 1: really care about that, but still, come on, Ellen, be

754
00:45:47,640 --> 00:45:53,320
Speaker 1: a nice guy. So these machines would bore tunnels into

755
00:45:53,440 --> 00:45:59,520
Speaker 1: the earth, presumably for a either an underground transportation system

756
00:45:59,520 --> 00:46:02,000
Speaker 1: within US that would not be hyper loop. Instead, it

757
00:46:02,040 --> 00:46:06,759
Speaker 1: would use electric skates. Imagine slot cars. If you've ever

758
00:46:06,760 --> 00:46:09,359
Speaker 1: played with a slot car system where you've got these

759
00:46:09,360 --> 00:46:12,760
Speaker 1: little cars and they fit into a slot, they snap

760
00:46:12,800 --> 00:46:15,080
Speaker 1: into a slot on a track and then use a

761
00:46:15,080 --> 00:46:18,160
Speaker 1: little controller and you can make the car zoom around

762
00:46:18,160 --> 00:46:22,880
Speaker 1: the track. It's not dissimilar to that. Instead of slot cars,

763
00:46:22,880 --> 00:46:26,120
Speaker 1: you would have these sleds that would be attached to

764
00:46:26,280 --> 00:46:30,600
Speaker 1: this underground tunnel system. And what you would do is,

765
00:46:30,640 --> 00:46:33,560
Speaker 1: if you wanted to travel across town, you would drive

766
00:46:33,600 --> 00:46:36,919
Speaker 1: your car onto a platform of some sort that would

767
00:46:36,960 --> 00:46:40,279
Speaker 1: lower you down onto one of these sleds, and then

768
00:46:40,320 --> 00:46:42,279
Speaker 1: you would put the car in park and then the

769
00:46:42,360 --> 00:46:44,600
Speaker 1: sled would zoom off, So it's like you're in a

770
00:46:44,640 --> 00:46:48,160
Speaker 1: parking space that is moving. The sled itself can move

771
00:46:48,239 --> 00:46:50,759
Speaker 1: through the tunnels, and it can even join in two

772
00:46:50,840 --> 00:46:54,160
Speaker 1: tunnels that have existing sleds already moving through it using

773
00:46:54,440 --> 00:46:58,560
Speaker 1: UH software. So it's essentially like an autonomous car, except

774
00:46:58,640 --> 00:47:01,640
Speaker 1: instead of the car being on onymous, it's the sled itself.

775
00:47:01,760 --> 00:47:04,480
Speaker 1: It's programmed to know where you want to be dropped off,

776
00:47:05,280 --> 00:47:08,240
Speaker 1: and it picks you up, takes you through the tunnel system,

777
00:47:08,360 --> 00:47:10,640
Speaker 1: drops you off wherever you need to go, and it

778
00:47:10,680 --> 00:47:12,520
Speaker 1: can do so at a very high speed, at least

779
00:47:12,520 --> 00:47:16,479
Speaker 1: according to Musk's design, like a twenty miles per hours,

780
00:47:16,560 --> 00:47:20,160
Speaker 1: so pretty fast. And again this is for intercity travel

781
00:47:20,680 --> 00:47:23,640
Speaker 1: from one point in a city to another, and the

782
00:47:23,719 --> 00:47:27,440
Speaker 1: reason for this, Musk says, is to alleviate traffic issues.

783
00:47:27,480 --> 00:47:30,360
Speaker 1: He says there are only two solutions. You have to

784
00:47:30,560 --> 00:47:34,920
Speaker 1: alleviating traffic ultimately in big urban centers, and that is

785
00:47:34,960 --> 00:47:37,520
Speaker 1: either to go up in the case of flying cars,

786
00:47:37,960 --> 00:47:40,680
Speaker 1: or to go down in the case of tunneling. And

787
00:47:40,680 --> 00:47:42,759
Speaker 1: he says, by tunneling, you can create this whole three

788
00:47:42,760 --> 00:47:46,239
Speaker 1: dimensional transportation system that can get you anywhere within a

789
00:47:46,280 --> 00:47:51,879
Speaker 1: city super super fast, uh, avoiding street traffic. So it's

790
00:47:51,880 --> 00:47:55,160
Speaker 1: an interesting idea. Well, that was what the boring company

791
00:47:55,160 --> 00:47:57,160
Speaker 1: was supposed to be, but he also said, oh and

792
00:47:57,280 --> 00:47:59,680
Speaker 1: also you could, if you wanted to, you know, dig

793
00:47:59,760 --> 00:48:02,839
Speaker 1: high per loop tunnels. So remember originally he had talked

794
00:48:02,880 --> 00:48:05,920
Speaker 1: about hyper loop being a tube on top of pylons,

795
00:48:06,280 --> 00:48:08,640
Speaker 1: but now he's also talking about the possibility of building

796
00:48:08,760 --> 00:48:11,600
Speaker 1: a hyper loop that would be subterranean. You would go

797
00:48:11,680 --> 00:48:16,840
Speaker 1: down a couple dozen feet, and then you would dig

798
00:48:16,960 --> 00:48:21,760
Speaker 1: a tunnel to uh to house this hyper loop tube

799
00:48:22,320 --> 00:48:24,840
Speaker 1: and you would go through that way. He says that

800
00:48:24,920 --> 00:48:29,120
Speaker 1: you know, this would be less expensive than other tunneling companies,

801
00:48:29,200 --> 00:48:34,720
Speaker 1: largely because he's thinking of building one way travel tubes.

802
00:48:35,280 --> 00:48:38,719
Speaker 1: So instead of it being a double wide tunnel, it

803
00:48:38,719 --> 00:48:40,480
Speaker 1: would be single wide. He says they would have to

804
00:48:40,520 --> 00:48:44,000
Speaker 1: be only fourteen ft wide compared to your standard tunnels

805
00:48:44,040 --> 00:48:46,640
Speaker 1: which are twice that length, and that would speed things

806
00:48:46,719 --> 00:48:49,520
Speaker 1: up and make them less expensive. By speed things up,

807
00:48:49,840 --> 00:48:52,360
Speaker 1: I think he's talking in relative terms because your average

808
00:48:52,800 --> 00:48:56,319
Speaker 1: boring machine moves slower than a snail's pace. And that's

809
00:48:56,360 --> 00:49:01,520
Speaker 1: not an exaggeration, that's legit. They actually moved slower than

810
00:49:01,600 --> 00:49:06,440
Speaker 1: snails move. Now, Elon Musk wants to use this potentially

811
00:49:06,480 --> 00:49:08,920
Speaker 1: to build this hyper loop system, and he tweeted not

812
00:49:09,120 --> 00:49:14,200
Speaker 1: long ago in that he had received quote verbal approval

813
00:49:14,400 --> 00:49:17,120
Speaker 1: and quote from the White House to build out a

814
00:49:17,200 --> 00:49:20,080
Speaker 1: hyper loop system that would connect DC to New York

815
00:49:20,120 --> 00:49:23,480
Speaker 1: City and also potentially connect other cities like Baltimore and

816
00:49:23,520 --> 00:49:30,400
Speaker 1: Philadelphia within this loop. So verbal commitment isn't a contract.

817
00:49:30,600 --> 00:49:33,279
Speaker 1: There are lots of other layers that any sort of

818
00:49:33,320 --> 00:49:36,160
Speaker 1: agreement would have to go through before you could actually

819
00:49:36,239 --> 00:49:41,279
Speaker 1: build out such a system. We're talking state level, we're

820
00:49:41,280 --> 00:49:44,840
Speaker 1: talking city level, county level. There are tons of different

821
00:49:44,920 --> 00:49:48,400
Speaker 1: layers that stand in the way of building out the system,

822
00:49:48,440 --> 00:49:54,520
Speaker 1: and a verbal agreement doesn't really hold up as anything

823
00:49:54,640 --> 00:49:57,359
Speaker 1: really firm. So we still have a long way to go.

824
00:49:58,320 --> 00:50:01,440
Speaker 1: But if Elon Musk has his way a he would

825
00:50:01,640 --> 00:50:04,880
Speaker 1: end up building out this system on the East Eastern seaboard,

826
00:50:04,960 --> 00:50:07,799
Speaker 1: and you would have a way of getting from Washington,

827
00:50:07,960 --> 00:50:11,120
Speaker 1: d C. To New York City in less than an hour,

828
00:50:11,960 --> 00:50:14,520
Speaker 1: going more than six hundred miles per hour on one

829
00:50:14,520 --> 00:50:18,840
Speaker 1: of these hyperloop trains. Um Obviously, we're still in the

830
00:50:18,880 --> 00:50:22,200
Speaker 1: early days. Back in when we talked about this the

831
00:50:22,200 --> 00:50:24,640
Speaker 1: first time, it was all very conceptual and no one

832
00:50:24,680 --> 00:50:27,760
Speaker 1: had really built anything, not even a testing facility. Yet

833
00:50:28,200 --> 00:50:31,279
Speaker 1: today we can say that there are testing facilities out

834
00:50:31,280 --> 00:50:34,319
Speaker 1: there and they're showing some promising results. We still don't

835
00:50:34,360 --> 00:50:36,879
Speaker 1: know exactly how expensive it will be to build out

836
00:50:36,920 --> 00:50:41,200
Speaker 1: these systems, or how much interference or or resistance they

837
00:50:41,280 --> 00:50:46,000
Speaker 1: might encounter. At a political level, there haven't been enough

838
00:50:46,640 --> 00:50:52,320
Speaker 1: studies on the safety of such systems or potential environmental impact.

839
00:50:53,400 --> 00:50:55,520
Speaker 1: I'm still curious to find out about how all these

840
00:50:55,560 --> 00:50:59,080
Speaker 1: systems will be powered. If Elon musk system can in

841
00:50:59,120 --> 00:51:01,200
Speaker 1: fact be powered by soul or power if he does

842
00:51:01,239 --> 00:51:05,600
Speaker 1: a subterranean version, is he going to align the upper

843
00:51:06,280 --> 00:51:09,759
Speaker 1: level with solar panels to power this hyper loop, or

844
00:51:09,760 --> 00:51:12,520
Speaker 1: will it in fact draw its electricity from some other source.

845
00:51:13,120 --> 00:51:17,120
Speaker 1: We don't have any details for these to answer these questions.

846
00:51:17,120 --> 00:51:20,320
Speaker 1: As it stands, so I'm sure, assuming that tech stuff

847
00:51:20,360 --> 00:51:23,440
Speaker 1: is still alive and kicking in the future, when hyperloop

848
00:51:24,239 --> 00:51:27,440
Speaker 1: either becomes a reality or is abandoned altogether, we can

849
00:51:27,480 --> 00:51:31,920
Speaker 1: revisit this again and talk about what did happen, what

850
00:51:32,040 --> 00:51:35,120
Speaker 1: didn't happen, what went right, what went wrong. I can

851
00:51:35,160 --> 00:51:37,880
Speaker 1: say that I want it to succeed. I want this

852
00:51:38,000 --> 00:51:41,080
Speaker 1: to be something that works. I want to see cities

853
00:51:41,480 --> 00:51:44,680
Speaker 1: connected in this way where you can have very fast,

854
00:51:44,800 --> 00:51:47,280
Speaker 1: convenient travel. I want to see it at a price

855
00:51:47,400 --> 00:51:49,960
Speaker 1: where the average person could in fact take advantage of it.

856
00:51:50,000 --> 00:51:52,800
Speaker 1: If it's twenty dollars a ticket ends up being a reality,

857
00:51:53,600 --> 00:51:56,080
Speaker 1: I think that's great. A lot of people have suggested

858
00:51:56,120 --> 00:51:59,080
Speaker 1: that perhaps the expenses would be much greater than what

859
00:51:59,080 --> 00:52:02,560
Speaker 1: what's anticipated, and therefore the price per ticket would be

860
00:52:02,760 --> 00:52:08,319
Speaker 1: way way higher, which means you ultimately create a transportation

861
00:52:08,400 --> 00:52:11,600
Speaker 1: system for rich people, and rich people, while they can

862
00:52:11,640 --> 00:52:14,239
Speaker 1: afford to take it, there's not enough of them to

863
00:52:14,320 --> 00:52:18,839
Speaker 1: support an entire transportation system on their own. You have

864
00:52:18,920 --> 00:52:23,200
Speaker 1: to have something that can have the volume of passengers

865
00:52:23,239 --> 00:52:25,800
Speaker 1: needed to keep it going with that flow of revenue.

866
00:52:26,400 --> 00:52:30,440
Speaker 1: Ah Otherwise you're just gonna have a very expensive toy

867
00:52:30,440 --> 00:52:32,680
Speaker 1: that ends up getting a little bit of use out

868
00:52:32,719 --> 00:52:36,799
Speaker 1: of the gate, and then overtime winds down because there's

869
00:52:36,800 --> 00:52:40,280
Speaker 1: just not enough financial support. Even if all the technology works,

870
00:52:40,680 --> 00:52:44,359
Speaker 1: the economics might not work. And that's the interesting thing

871
00:52:44,400 --> 00:52:47,399
Speaker 1: about tech is that sometimes all your parts are working

872
00:52:47,480 --> 00:52:52,439
Speaker 1: just fine, it's just they're not working enough. So that's

873
00:52:52,520 --> 00:52:55,359
Speaker 1: kind of the update on hyperloop, how it stands now

874
00:52:55,400 --> 00:52:57,960
Speaker 1: and where it's going. We'll keep an eye on this

875
00:52:58,120 --> 00:53:02,160
Speaker 1: and see if again, any actual construction happens on a

876
00:53:02,280 --> 00:53:04,560
Speaker 1: major level in any of these cities, and if so,

877
00:53:05,000 --> 00:53:07,719
Speaker 1: how it all turns out. Meanwhile, if you guys have

878
00:53:07,800 --> 00:53:11,400
Speaker 1: suggestions for episode topics I should cover in future episodes

879
00:53:11,440 --> 00:53:13,560
Speaker 1: of tech Stuff, let me know. Send me an email.

880
00:53:13,719 --> 00:53:17,560
Speaker 1: The address is text stuff at how stuff works dot com,

881
00:53:17,680 --> 00:53:20,240
Speaker 1: or you can drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter.

882
00:53:20,320 --> 00:53:22,360
Speaker 1: The handle of both of those is tech Stuff HSW.

883
00:53:22,719 --> 00:53:25,360
Speaker 1: You should keep in mind I do live stream my

884
00:53:25,480 --> 00:53:28,480
Speaker 1: podcast recordings. This episode was live streamed in front of

885
00:53:28,560 --> 00:53:31,919
Speaker 1: a live studio audience who are chatting at me right now,

886
00:53:32,600 --> 00:53:35,800
Speaker 1: and you can find that at twitch dot tv slash

887
00:53:35,840 --> 00:53:38,759
Speaker 1: tech Stuff. Every Wednesday and Friday, I record episodes of

888
00:53:38,800 --> 00:53:41,440
Speaker 1: tech Stuff, So come join me. Be part of the conversation,

889
00:53:41,680 --> 00:53:49,719
Speaker 1: and I'll talk to you again really soon for more

890
00:53:49,719 --> 00:53:52,080
Speaker 1: on this and bathands of other topics because it has

891
00:53:52,120 --> 00:54:00,479
Speaker 1: to works. Dot com nine