Not so friendly reminder that musk specifically came up with, and pushed, for hyperloop knowing that it would never be made, as an effort to stop the development of highspeed rail in America and shift all political discussions of it because "something better is around the corner":
As I’ve written in my book, Musk admitted to his biographer Ashlee Vance that Hyperloop was all about trying to get legislators to cancel plans for high-speed rail in California—even though he had no plans to build it. Several years ago, Musk said that public transit was “a pain in the ass” where you were surrounded by strangers, including possible serial killers, to justify his opposition.
Also: 2024 update, the total length of China's high-speed rail tracks has now reached well over 45,000 km, or 28,000 miles, by the end of 2023.
They are additionally five years ahead of schedule and expect to double the total number within ten years. And, before someone inevitably complains about "how expensive it is", they are turning over a net-profit of over $600M USD a year.
Union Pacific's profits over the last 20 years would have paid for a high speed rail line from Chicago to Los Angeles
The existence of that entity as a private owner of critical American infrastructure, which uses it to extract rents from the American economy, has cost us at least one trans-continental high speed rail line worth of value.
Go figure, a billionaire killing the competition in order to make more money.
And there’s a segment of society that thinks billionaires should essentially get dictatorial powers because they “earned it” and they have good business sense.
I'm not even mad at Elon. He came up with a clownishly absurd idea and the media bought it. He literally described it as "an air hockey table in a vacuum tube" while laughing, and the media just went ahead and ate his ass anyway.
In hindsight, CA lawmakers should have known not to trust the guy that owns a car company, when taking advice to shut down a massive public transportation project.
I'm not going to promote a 'china is better' post because that's one of the reasons I don't like it here. I don't want to hear it. China is not a role model.
Projects intended for the public good don’t need to be profitable. It is disingenuous to argue that High Speed Rail is profitable in China, nor can you make the assumption that it could be profitable in other markets.
There are a lot of conflicting reports on how profitable HSR is in China, the fact that government and Industry are often one in the same and the lack of good public accounting at Chinese companies makes any reports from HSR advocates out of china questionable. After all they do want to sell their HSR technology globally.
HSR is much more difficult in the US as the rights of private property are respected and projects need to pass a much higher threshold of review for environmental impact, etc. There are many major infrastructure projects in China that turn out to be poorly planned and executed years after they have been completed.
Serious question: Aside from the obvious reasons (oil and car lobby), what is preventing the US from adopting and building high speed rail infrastructure? I would much rather take a 4 hour trip on a comfortable train than my cramp Acura.
I wouldn't trust China to build that stuff. Have you seen what they use as construction materials of their buildings? They're basically styrofoam and flour.
I've been on the high speed line from Shanghai, it's fantastic. Covered 700km in around 2 hours with beautiful views of the landscape. The ride was comfortable and relaxing.
I've also been on the Shanghai Maglev, which I believe at the time and maybe still is the fastest passenger train in the world. It was pretty amazing flying over the motorway. It goes between Pudong airport and Shanghai city centre in about 10 minutes. I felt slightly nauseous during the acceleration.
I do remember that moment I first read about hyperloop. Before that, I was as fooled as anyone else by Musk's BS. It was the first time I remember doing a double take and thinking, wow, this guy is operating on bad faith here. What else is he saying that is actually bullshit?