WEBVTT - The Death of Hyperloop One 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:12.840 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:16.120 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:16.160 --> 0:00:19.200 I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and How the 0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:23.480 Tech Are Yet. So I've been doing several episodes on 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:26.520 big news stories of twenty twenty three, and I think 0:00:26.560 --> 0:00:29.880 you could make a strong case that this shouldn't count 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:33.080 among them. But it is the conclusion of a pretty 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:37.320 darn dramatic journey in tech, a journey that, fittingly enough 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:41.720 is about transportation and how a blue sky concept turned 0:00:41.760 --> 0:00:45.000 out to be perhaps a bit too far into the clouds. 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:48.120 So we are talking about the end of the company 0:00:48.520 --> 0:00:53.640 Hyperloop one. First, let's turn back the clocks a whole 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:57.400 decade to the spring of twenty thirteen. That's when Elon 0:00:57.520 --> 0:01:00.600 Musk published a blog post that gave to tech about 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:03.960 something he had been hinting about for a while since 0:01:04.040 --> 0:01:06.959 late twenty twelve at least, which was a new concept 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:11.840 for mass transit that could work within or between cities. 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:16.880 It involved an enclosed tube within which aluminum pods would 0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:20.119 zip about at incredible speeds up to eight hundred miles 0:01:20.160 --> 0:01:23.640 per hour or nearly one two hundred and ninety kilometers 0:01:23.680 --> 0:01:30.280 per hour, and that this would transform travel between cities 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:33.560 that were too far apart to easily drive between, but 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:37.040 perhaps too close together to take a flight from one 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:39.840 to the other. So how would this all work well. 0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:43.520 For one thing, the idea was to pump out most 0:01:43.640 --> 0:01:46.680 of the air that was inside the tube. This would 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:51.600 help reduce wind resistance significantly. The pods would use what 0:01:51.640 --> 0:01:54.680 were called air bearings. That is, they would use a 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:57.200 cushion of air to hover inside the tube, kind of 0:01:57.200 --> 0:02:01.400 like an air hockey table works and powerful electro magnets 0:02:01.400 --> 0:02:04.960 would provide the propulsive force to push, slash pull the 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:08.640 pods down the track. Passengers would sit in the pods. 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:11.600 They would accelerate up to top speed at a rate 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:14.400 that you know wouldn't turn them into soup, and similarly, 0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:17.880 they would decelerate at a rate that would be gentle 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:21.760 as they neared their destination. Actually, Musk had a couple 0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:24.480 of different variations on this idea so early on, he 0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:29.160 suggested that these pods would have a pair of compressor fans, 0:02:29.200 --> 0:02:30.680 one on the front and one on the back, And 0:02:30.720 --> 0:02:33.160 the idea is that the ones in the front would 0:02:33.200 --> 0:02:36.359 take the air ahead of the pod and transfer them 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:38.200 to the fans that are in the back, so it 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:40.239 goes behind the pod so that the pod doesn't have 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:43.239 to actually push through the air. I have no idea 0:02:43.720 --> 0:02:46.520 how that would have worked at speed, but that was 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:50.799 the concept Musk outlined. Anyway. Musk estimated that would cost 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:53.760 around six billion dollars to build a track between Los 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:58.040 Angeles and San Francisco, and that a trip on this 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:01.520 hyper loop would take about half an hour to go 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:04.680 between those cities. If you were to drive that route, 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:06.920 it would take you nearly six hours to do so. 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:11.000 Musk's idea seemed to target cities that were just the 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:13.920 right distance apart, so that the trip would take you know, 0:03:14.000 --> 0:03:16.040 a lot less time than it would driving, but it 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:18.960 would make more sense to take the hyperloop than it 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:23.840 would to take a flight. Musk was essentially telling the world, Hey, 0:03:23.840 --> 0:03:26.560 wouldn't it be cool if we could do this? And yes, 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:28.519 it would be cool if we could do that. It'd 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:30.080 be cool if we could do a lot of things. 0:03:30.600 --> 0:03:32.680 But he was really hoping that someone else would jump 0:03:32.680 --> 0:03:34.920 in and try and actually do it. He said he 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:37.800 couldn't really afford to take time away from his other companies, 0:03:38.240 --> 0:03:41.520 those being Tesla and SpaceX, and then spend that time 0:03:41.520 --> 0:03:46.240 on the hyperloop concept. Apparently, transforming transportation is not worthy 0:03:46.280 --> 0:03:50.280 of distraction, but running Twitter into the ground is. Sorry. 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:52.400 I can only go so long while talking about Musk 0:03:52.440 --> 0:03:56.840 before I start getting snarky. Anyway, while Musk would dip 0:03:56.880 --> 0:03:59.640 his toe a little bit in the field, he went 0:03:59.680 --> 0:04:02.760 so far to launch the Boring Company, which at least 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:05.680 initially sounded like it was meant to dig tunnels that 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:09.360 would house hyper loop tubes. The real push was to 0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:12.440 inspire other people to embrace the concept of hyperloop and 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:15.560 try to make their own version. One person who Musk 0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:19.400 spoke with actually before publishing that blog post was an 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:24.320 investor named Shervin Pishevar. The two had talked about the 0:04:24.400 --> 0:04:29.480 idea privately, and Pishevar repeatedly encouraged Musk to go public 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:33.159 with his concept, and once that happened, Pishevar founded a 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:39.040 company initially called Hyperloop Technologies. This was in late twenty fourteen. 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:43.120 One person whom Bishevar reached out to was a former 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:48.640 engineer for SpaceX named Brogan Bam Brogen and no, that 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:50.880 was not the name his parents gave him, but he 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:53.280 changed it after getting married, when he and his wife 0:04:53.600 --> 0:04:56.120 sort of merged their names together, and I think that's 0:04:56.200 --> 0:05:00.640 kind of sweet anyway, While engineers got to work trying 0:05:00.680 --> 0:05:03.839 to figure out how to turn this hyper loop idea 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:08.440 into a practical reality. Pishevar helped secure funding through various 0:05:08.440 --> 0:05:12.240 investment rounds and he did okay with that. He raised 0:05:12.320 --> 0:05:15.880 tens of millions of dollars in the process. But this 0:05:16.120 --> 0:05:20.680 was a very very expensive endeavor, right, tens of millions 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:23.960 doesn't go that far when you're talking about designing and 0:05:24.000 --> 0:05:26.400 then building out a prototype of something that would be 0:05:26.480 --> 0:05:30.440 a brand new transportation infrastructure. Now, the first couple of 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:34.520 years at Hyperloop Technologies were fairly quiet. The company was 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:38.760 hiring engineers and building test facilities and prototypes that kind 0:05:38.760 --> 0:05:41.240 of thing. They built a test or started to build 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:44.680 a test track out in Nevada. Eventually they would complete that. 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:49.200 In twenty sixteen, the company actually changed its name from 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:54.240 Hyperloop Technologies to hyper Loop One. It also migrated away 0:05:54.279 --> 0:05:57.479 from the air bearings design that Musk wrote about in 0:05:57.560 --> 0:06:02.159 his blog, and instead they looked to a magnetic levitation design. 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:05.240 So maglev trains have been a thing for a while, 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:07.719 and it kind of made sense to reduce the number 0:06:07.760 --> 0:06:10.320 of brand new technologies that you were going to rely 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:14.479 upon and replace some of them with tested and proven ones. Like, 0:06:14.520 --> 0:06:17.360 if you're using all new technologies all down the line 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:21.240 in your very complex system, something's not going to go right. 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:24.279 So if you look at other companies in the hyperloop space, 0:06:24.320 --> 0:06:27.719 you'll also find that most of them deviate to some 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:31.680 degree from the original proposal. Some of them deviate wildly 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:36.239 from the original concept of hyperloop anyway. By early twenty sixteen, 0:06:36.320 --> 0:06:40.760 Bambrogen had been named Chief Technology Officer or CTO, and 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:44.320 a guy named Rob Lloyd was the CEO. But drama 0:06:44.440 --> 0:06:46.880 was right around the corner. And you can't really take 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:49.480 corners with a hyperloop design because you need these really 0:06:49.600 --> 0:06:53.760 like long, graceful curves to be able to change direction. Anyway, 0:06:54.480 --> 0:06:57.000 the summer of twenty sixteen would see a real shakeup 0:06:57.080 --> 0:07:02.159 at Hyperloop one. Bambrogen suddenly left the company. Now, the 0:07:02.200 --> 0:07:05.000 official statement from hyper Loop one was that Bambrogen had 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:09.720 decided to take a step back, but Bambrogen himself would 0:07:09.720 --> 0:07:12.920 contradict that statement, and he did so through a lawsuit. 0:07:13.280 --> 0:07:16.000 He was also joined by three other employees who brought 0:07:16.080 --> 0:07:20.960 charges against the company. Bambrogen accused top executives of hyper 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:24.480 Loop one of engaging in financial shenanigans and abuse. He 0:07:24.520 --> 0:07:28.800 was essentially saying people were funneling money away from the 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:32.080 company for their own personal benefit. He also said that 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:35.040 he had been threatened physically by leaders at the company, 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:39.080 and he accused his co founder Pishevar of leveraging hyper 0:07:39.120 --> 0:07:42.760 Loop one to essentially promote himself. So Bambrogen was saying 0:07:42.760 --> 0:07:45.800 that executive leadership was more concerned about using the company 0:07:45.840 --> 0:07:50.120 to upgrade their personal status rather than, you know, build 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:54.560 a new kind of transportation. The company countersued Bambrogen and 0:07:54.600 --> 0:07:58.320 accused him of plotting to take over the company. His 0:07:58.480 --> 0:08:00.280 whole thing was that he was going to over throw 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:03.360 leadership and take over because he wasn't satisfied with where 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:06.640 the company was going. And it all got very melodramatic, 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:10.880 but the parties settled out of court in late twenty sixteen. 0:08:11.240 --> 0:08:14.400 Bambrogen went on to found another company called a Rivo 0:08:14.840 --> 0:08:19.920 or a revo if you prefer Riivo. Ultimately, that company 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:23.800 had trouble securing funds and it shut down in twenty eighteen. 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:26.120 But anyway, let's get back to the hyper loop story. 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:30.160 So we're going back to twenty seventeen now, because Bambrogen 0:08:30.200 --> 0:08:34.240 has left. He files his lawsuit, the company counter suites. 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:37.600 They all settle out of court. And now in twenty seventeen, 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:42.559 that's when Richard Branson's company, Virgin made a significant investment 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:46.720 in hyper Loop one, essentially acquiring the company. So the 0:08:46.760 --> 0:08:51.080 company rebranded itself again and now called itself Virgin hyper 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:55.800 Loop one. Later in twenty seventeen, the company lost its 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:59.680 other co founder, that of Shervin Pishevar, the investor who 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:03.320 was really the driving force behind the company being founded 0:09:03.360 --> 0:09:06.000 in the first place. So why was that, Well, the 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:08.640 reason for his departure was that multiple women had stepped 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:12.720 forward and accused him of sexual misconduct. Those were charges 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:16.080 that he denied, and he claimed it was actually part 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:19.920 of a coordinated smear campaign. True or not. He stepped 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:23.000 down from the company, or was told to step down. 0:09:23.040 --> 0:09:26.240 He maintains it was his decision. Others said that he 0:09:26.320 --> 0:09:29.280 had no decision in the matter. The board of directors 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:34.000 told him to resign, and Branson essentially took over Virgin 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:37.960 Hyperloop one. Now, while all this was going on, the 0:09:38.000 --> 0:09:40.400 engineers at the company were still just trying to develop 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:45.760 the technology and hoping that hyperloop would remain solid around them. 0:09:46.200 --> 0:09:49.200 Virgin hyper Loop one built a test track in Nevada, 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:52.520 as I said, and ran multiple tests of maglev technology. 0:09:52.800 --> 0:09:56.640 In fact, in twenty twenty, the company even conducted its 0:09:56.720 --> 0:10:01.160 first and only test with human passengers inside a pod 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:05.520 before they had all been unmanned tests. The test track 0:10:05.600 --> 0:10:08.120 wasn't nearly long enough to push the pod to the 0:10:08.120 --> 0:10:11.719 insane speeds that Musk had envisioned, but it still got 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:13.880 up to around one hundred miles per hour or you know, 0:10:13.920 --> 0:10:16.080 like one hundred and sixty kilometers per hour, so still 0:10:16.120 --> 0:10:18.880 really fast, just not fast enough to cut a trip 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:21.840 from you know, Los Angeles to San Francisco to just 0:10:21.880 --> 0:10:26.440 thirty minutes. The company changed names again in twenty twenty. 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:29.840 It dropped the one from its name and it became 0:10:30.000 --> 0:10:32.880 Virgin hyper Loop. And no, it would not be the 0:10:32.960 --> 0:10:36.840 last time that the company would change names. Okay, we've 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:39.120 got some more drama to get through before we get 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:42.800 to that. I'm gonna reduce the drama here by taking 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:54.440 a break to thank our sponsors. Okay, we're back. We 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:57.640 just left off in twenty twenty with Virgin hyper Loop 0:10:57.760 --> 0:11:02.319 one becoming Virgin hyper loop, and things went a little 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:05.720 quiet after that. You know, there was still work being 0:11:05.720 --> 0:11:08.559 done at the company. There were still plans for tests, 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:14.040 there were still plans to deploy hyperop transportation around the 0:11:14.080 --> 0:11:18.839 world in the future. In early twenty twenty two, the 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:24.040 company announced a major change in its focus. Rather than 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:28.040 building out a transportation system meant for human passengers, the 0:11:28.080 --> 0:11:30.640 company said the new goal was to build a way 0:11:30.679 --> 0:11:36.319 to transport cargo. Now, this was a pretty big blow 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:40.400 to the kind of utopian view of what hyper loop 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:43.680 was meant to be, but representatives of the company said 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:47.240 the change was due to how the pandemic affected travel, 0:11:47.760 --> 0:11:51.160 as well as how it highlighted bottlenecks in the supply chain, 0:11:51.679 --> 0:11:56.760 and arguably this move was an effort to address a 0:11:56.800 --> 0:12:00.920 real world need. The supply chain was, without question a 0:12:00.960 --> 0:12:04.400 delicate thing, and as we learned through the pandemic, a 0:12:04.440 --> 0:12:07.360 small disruption in the supply chain could ripple out and 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:14.200 escalate into huge problems. Also, moving stuff around carries way 0:12:14.280 --> 0:12:19.760 less risk than moving people around. With people, you have 0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:22.320 all these troublesome regulations that you have to work within. 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:25.360 Just so you know, folks, don't get reduced to goo 0:12:25.760 --> 0:12:27.240 as you try to get them from point A to 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:30.400 point B. Ideally, you don't want your cargo to become 0:12:30.440 --> 0:12:33.439 goo either, but if it does, it's way less of 0:12:33.480 --> 0:12:36.600 a headache than if you were moving people around. A 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:39.160 change in focus to cargo was seen as something that 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:43.640 would ease engineering and regulatory challenges and make the hyper 0:12:43.720 --> 0:12:48.720 loop a more practical and potentially realizable goal. Late in 0:12:48.800 --> 0:12:52.400 twenty twenty two, Virgin removed its branding from the company 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:56.320 and once again it became hyper Loop one and Branson 0:12:56.400 --> 0:13:00.880 pretty much you got out of Hyperlop one at this point. 0:13:01.760 --> 0:13:04.680 So if you're keeping track, here's how the name of 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:09.200 the company changed. It started as Hyperloop Technologies, then hyper 0:13:09.240 --> 0:13:13.800 Loop one, then Virgin hyper Loop one, then Virgin hyper Loop, 0:13:14.240 --> 0:13:18.240 then back to hyper Loop one. That's five names in 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:21.080 ten years, which kind of reminds me of how I 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:24.880 was hired in two thousand and seven, and I've had 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:28.520 five or six different corporate overlords while technically I was 0:13:28.559 --> 0:13:30.520 still holding the same job, or at least I was 0:13:30.559 --> 0:13:34.600 still on the same career. There's a ship of theseus 0:13:34.720 --> 0:13:38.920 kind of thing going on here. Anyway, a few years ago, 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:42.199 the folks at Hyperloop one projected that there'd be working 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:46.800 hyperloops by twenty twenty or so. Obviously that didn't happen. 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:49.839 It didn't happen from hyper Loop one, it didn't happen 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:52.920 from any of the other dozen or so companies that 0:13:52.960 --> 0:13:56.120 are trying to make the hyper loop idea work. And 0:13:56.240 --> 0:14:00.000 since twenty twenty one, pretty much all the top brass 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:03.360 at hyper Loop one left the company. Like, by the 0:14:03.480 --> 0:14:05.960 end of twenty twenty one, you didn't have anyone there 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:10.680 at the company who was a founder or original executive. 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:14.440 They had all left. The folks leading Hyperloop one by 0:14:14.440 --> 0:14:16.560 the end of twenty twenty two were just not the 0:14:16.559 --> 0:14:19.480 same people who founded or led the company in previous years. 0:14:19.880 --> 0:14:22.600 It's really hard for any company to hold itself together 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:27.000 with that kind of massive shift in leadership. And keep 0:14:27.040 --> 0:14:29.080 in mind, this was a startup that still was just 0:14:29.280 --> 0:14:34.160 closing in on being a decade old. Ultimately, hyper Loop 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:36.400 one was not able to hold it together. The company 0:14:36.480 --> 0:14:39.480 is now shutting down and its intellectual property will go 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:42.280 to its largest investor, which is a company out of 0:14:42.320 --> 0:14:48.239 Dubai called DP World. The hyperloop company that was arguably 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:51.600 both the most famous and the most likely to achieve 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:55.880 Musk's vision has now called it quits. There are still 0:14:55.920 --> 0:14:59.680 other hyper loop related companies out there that are still 0:14:59.680 --> 0:15:03.120 working on these challenges. A couple of them have actually 0:15:03.320 --> 0:15:07.000 drifted away from really anything resembling a hyper loop and 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:11.680 gone with more conventional forms of transportation, things like maglev 0:15:11.720 --> 0:15:14.720 trains that aren't traveling in any sort of tunnel or 0:15:14.760 --> 0:15:18.560 tube or anything like that. And you could make a 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:21.720 decent argument to say that it's too early to call 0:15:22.040 --> 0:15:25.840 hyperloop well and truly dead, but it sure as heck 0:15:26.000 --> 0:15:30.440 isn't doing great. Even Elon Musk has moved on. The 0:15:30.480 --> 0:15:33.320 boring company is in the process of creating a network 0:15:33.320 --> 0:15:37.040 of tunnels under Las Vegas, Nevada. But rather than using 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:41.920 pods to risk folks around, or even sleds that would 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:44.840 risk people who are sitting in their cars parked on 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:47.840 those sleds around, because that was an alternative, they said, well, 0:15:47.840 --> 0:15:50.200 maybe we don't need to build the pods. Maybe we 0:15:50.360 --> 0:15:54.040 just build sleds that can levitate above the surface of 0:15:54.080 --> 0:15:56.960 the tube and people just sit in their cars, they'll 0:15:57.000 --> 0:15:59.840 park on a little sled and get taken to wherever 0:15:59.840 --> 0:16:02.440 they need to be, and that'll cut their transportation time. 0:16:02.880 --> 0:16:07.040 That's not happening either. Instead, the tunnels that Musk is 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:10.200 digging under Las Vegas, it's really just a network of 0:16:10.320 --> 0:16:13.840 underground roads and Tesla vehicles are just going to drive 0:16:13.880 --> 0:16:18.640 around on those. This is not reinventing transportation. It's just 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:22.480 building more roads. And it definitely isn't mass transit because 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:24.640 the Tesla can only hold a few folks at a time. 0:16:25.000 --> 0:16:27.480 A lot of people have argued that the Las Vegas 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:30.320 project is just a huge waste of time and resources, 0:16:30.720 --> 0:16:35.480 that it's not actually addressing challenges in transportation. It's just gonna, 0:16:36.160 --> 0:16:39.880 you know, make things worse because you're just adding more congestion. 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:42.760 It's just as happening under the city as opposed to 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:45.120 on city streets. But it's not going to make any 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:48.960 meaningful difference in the day to day experience that people 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:52.040 have while they're traveling through Las Vegas. And I think 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:56.560 there's some valid criticisms there because this really isn't anything 0:16:56.760 --> 0:17:01.040 like the original vision that was pitched back in twenty thirteen. 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:03.880 So it seems like Musk himself has given up on 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:07.399 the dream. A lot of people have said that the 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:11.640 engineering challenges are far too great for us to meet 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:16.399 in a way that is financially practical, and that any 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:20.040 real effort to build one of these things, even if 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:24.600 it worked as designed, would be so prohibitively expensive that 0:17:24.680 --> 0:17:28.760 doesn't make sense. Others have argued that it's inherently unsafe. 0:17:29.040 --> 0:17:33.040 That if you have this enclosed tube structure and anything 0:17:33.119 --> 0:17:35.600 happens to the tube. Let's say that there's some seismic 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:40.800 activity that shifts elevation along part of the route, what 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:44.359 happens to pods traveling at eight hundred miles per hour 0:17:44.800 --> 0:17:47.919 down those tubes. That is a pretty scary thing to 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:50.800 think about. So a lot of folks have said that 0:17:50.880 --> 0:17:54.800 this idea was never really doable, at least not in 0:17:54.840 --> 0:17:57.719 the original concept, and that once you start to whittle 0:17:57.800 --> 0:18:00.200 things away so that you can make it more practical, well, 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:03.239 the question remains, well, why are you doing this at all? 0:18:03.320 --> 0:18:06.880 Why not just build a regular maglev train, something that 0:18:06.920 --> 0:18:09.920 exists in lots of places around the world, And it's 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:11.959 hard to come up with an answer to that that 0:18:12.440 --> 0:18:16.160 doesn't seem hokey. Anyway, I thought it was worth exploring 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:18.879 this story of this particular company just a bit. I 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:21.840 didn't have Hyperloop one biting the dust on my twenty 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:24.840 twenty three Bingo card. But then again, to be honest, 0:18:25.160 --> 0:18:27.280 the reason for that is I haven't really thought about 0:18:27.320 --> 0:18:30.880 the company in more than a year, so maybe that's 0:18:31.160 --> 0:18:35.119 a good indicator as to why it called it quits 0:18:35.160 --> 0:18:39.679 this year. Anyway, I thought that merited an episode of 0:18:39.720 --> 0:18:43.440 its own. I hope you are all well, and I'll 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:53.120 talk to you again really soon. Tech Stuff is an 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:58.240 iHeartRadio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:01.919 app Apple Podcasts, wherever you listen to your favorite shows.