Elon Musk's High-Speed Tube Transport System Could Be Coming to Australia's East Coast
Sydney to Melbourne in as little as 55 minutes? Yes please.
Earlier this year, we wrote about how Elon Musk's high-speed vacuum tube transport system could be a reality by 2018. Well, because it's Elon Musk, the whole thing looks like it's actually running on schedule — and potentially coming to Australia.
What, here? Where everything comes last? Yep. According to The Australian, Los Angeles-based firm Hyperloop One — who Musk has given the task of bringing this thing to life — are looking for a place to test the technology, and they have the Sydney to Melbourne corridor firmly on their radar.
"We're very keen to explore the potential for doing proof of operations in Australia and the reason for that is there's a clear long-term need for ultra-fast transport on the Australian east coast," Hyperloop One's vice president of global business development Alan James told The Australian. "So we would be looking, either in NSW or Victoria, or possibly in ACT, to develop the first section of that route, to prove the operation of Hyperloop, to get regulatory approval."
Described by Musk as a "cross between a Concorde and a railgun and an air hockey table" the proposed Hyperloop system — which is almost cartoonish in design — would consist of a long route of elevated vacuum-sealed steel tubes, through which pressurised capsules ride cushions of air at speeds of up to 1220 kilometres per hour.
Hyperloop One claims it can have you travelling from inner-city Melbourne to inner-city Sydney in only 55 minutes. 55 minutes. (Do you hear that? It's the sound of Tiger and Jetstar quaking in their boots.) To drive between Melbourne and Sydney would set you back about nine hours; currently, to get the train, it takes 11.5 hours. Australia — and particularly the Sydney-Melbourne corridor — is the perfect candidate for high speed rail transport because the track could slip nicely along the Hume Highway. There has, of course, been much talk and debate over a high-speed rail system connecting the two cities, but so far no government has been willing to commit to the project.
The Hyperloop One team seem to have made rapid progress since they started testing in LA last year. They recently revealed the first prototype will be up and running in the Nevada desert early in 2017 before (potentially, hopefully) kicking off the large scale trial in Australia in 2018.
Can it be the future already? For too long we've been at the mercy of Tiger's delays, expensive terrible airport coffee and the drive down the Hume with only Maccas to break up the monotony. We, for one, welcome Musk and his terrifying pneumatic tubes.
Via The Australian.
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