Hyperloop One — BrandWiki

Hyperloop One

Overview

Hyperloop One

former name	Hyperloop Technologies (2014–2016) Hyperloop One (2016–2017) Virgin Hyperloop One (2017–2020) Virgin Hyperloop (2020–2022)
type	Private
location city	Los Angeles, California, U.S.
foundation	June 1, 2014‡R1R‡
defunct	December 31, 2023
founders	Brogan BamBrogan Shervin Pishevar
key people	Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem (Chairman) Raja Narayanan (Interim CEO)
industry	Transportation Technology

Hyperloop One, known as Virgin Hyperloop until November 2022, was an American transportation technology company that worked to commercialize high-speed travel utilizing the Hyperloop concept which was a variant of the vacuum train. The company was established on June 1, 2014, and reorganized and renamed on October 12, 2017.[2]

Hyperloop systems were intended to move cargo and passengers at airline speeds but at a fraction of the cost. They were designed to run suspended by magnetic systems in a partially-evacuated tube.[3] The original Hyperloop concept proposed to use a linear electric motor to accelerate and decelerate an air bearing levitated pod through a low-pressure tube. The vehicle was to glide silently at speeds up to 760 mph with very low turbulence.[4] The system was proposed to be entirely autonomous, quiet, direct-to-destination, and on-demand. It would have been built on elevated structures or in tunnels, free of at-grade crossings and requiring less right of way than high-speed rail or highways.[5]

Virgin Hyperloop made substantive technical changes to

History

Origins

The idea of trains in vacuum has been elaborated many times in history of science and science-fiction.[17] The concept of Hyperloop transportation was first introduced by Robert H. Goddard in 1904.[18][19]

The recent plans for a version of vacuum train called Hyperloop emerged from a conversation between Elon Musk and Iranian-American Silicon Valley investor Shervin Pishevar when they were flying together to Cuba on a humanitarian mission in January 2012. Pishevar asked Musk to elaborate on his hyperloop idea, which the industrialist had been mulling over for some time. Pishevar suggested using it for cargo, an idea Musk hadn't considered, but he did say he was considering open-sourcing the concept because he was too busy running SpaceX and Tesla. Pishevar pushed Musk to publish his ideas about the hyperloop, so that Pishevar could study them.[20]

On August 12, 2013, Musk released the Hyperloop Alpha white paper,[21] generating widespread attention and enthusiasm. In the months that followed Pishevar incorporated Hyperloop Technologies, which would later be renamed Hyperloop One, and recruited the first board members, including David O. Sacks, Jim Messina, and Joe Lonsdale. Pishevar also recruited a cofounder, former SpaceX engineer Brogan Bambrogan. The firm set up shop in Bambrogan's garage in Los Angeles in November 2014. By January 2015, the firm had raised $9 million in venture capital from Pishevar's Sherpa Capital and investors such as Formation 8 and Zhen Fund, and was able to move into its current campus in the Los Angeles Arts District. Forbes magazine put the firm on its February 2015 cover, landing the startup many fresh recruits and much new investor interest. In June 2015, Pishevar recruited former Cisco president Rob Lloyd as an investor and, eventually, the company's CEO.[22][23]

Funding and growth

Between June 2015 and December 2015, the company continued to hire engineers and expand its downtown campus (now up to 75,000 square feet). In December 2015, Hyperloop Tech announced it would hold an open-air propulsion test at a new Test and Safety Site in Nevada. At the time, the company disclosed it had raised $37 million in financing to date and was completing a Series B round of $80m,[24] which they closed on in May 2016. In October 2016, the firm announced that it had raised another $50 million, led by an investment from 8VC and DP World.[25]

The propulsion open-air test or POAT, was successfully held in North Las Vegas on May 11, 2016. The POAT sled accelerated to 134 mph (216 km/h) in 2.3 seconds, representing a crucial proof of concept.[26] At the time, the renamed Hyperloop One announced it had secured partnerships with global engineering and design firms such as AECOM, SYSTRA, Arup, Deutsche Bahn, General Electric, and

Focus on freight and layoffs

In February 2022, the Financial Times reported that the company laid off more than 100 employees, with the move allowing it to focus on cargo transport instead of passenger travel.[36][37] In December 2022, a second round of layoffs was reported, focused on the firm's downtown Los Angeles staff and Las Vegas operational team.[38][39]

While Hyperloop One focuses on freight, competitors continue to focus on a mix of freight and passenger travel.[40][41]

The change in focus put construction of the West Virginia facility in question,

Test pods

XP-1

After Hyperloop One began the construction of 500 m DevLoop in October 2016, the company successfully conducted the first full-system test using the levitating chassis without passenger pod on May 12, 2017. On July 12, 2017, the company revealed images of its first generation pod prototype to be used at the DevLoop test site in Nevada to test aerodynamics.[45] The system-wide test integrated Hyperloop components including vacuum, propulsion, levitation, sled, control systems, tube, and structures.[46] The company designed and built its first generation full-scale test pod name XP-1 (short for experimental pod one) to be used in the full-scale pod tests.[47][48]

XP-1 has the length of 8.7 m, the width of 2.4 m, and the height of 2.4 m. The pod's motor was evolved from 500 motors that were built and tested in order to operate with resiliency in near-vacuum environment. The pod was successfully tested for the first time on July 29, 2017, with the 300 m of acceleration to reach the recorded speeds of 310 km/h. The pod achieved 3,151 horsepower during the test inside the depressurized tube with conditions similar to the atmosphere at 200,000 ft above sea level.[47]

On August 2, 2017, Hyperloop One successfully tested its XP-1 passenger pod, reaching speeds of up to 192 mph. It traveled for just over 300 m before the brakes kicked in and it rolled to a stop.[49] The XP-1 speed record was broken in August 2017 by WARR Hyperloop during the second Hyperloop Pod Competition with the top speeds of 324 km/h;[50] however, the pods in the competition were too small to carry passengers.[51]

XP-1 set the world's speed record again during the test in December 2017, reaching 387 km/h. With that test, the company also demonstrated its airlock technology that allowed the pod to be transferred into the depressurized tube.[52] With this system, XP-1 pod can be put in an airlock which takes a few minutes to depressurize before entering the already depressurized tube. Otherwise, the pod would need to enter the tube and wait for the 4-hour depressurization of the entire test tube.[53] In 2018, WARR Hyperloop broke XP-1 record again in the third Hyperloop Pod Competition, on a longer track.[51]

In the summer of 2019, the company took XP-1 on a roadshow to Ohio, Texas, Kansas, New York, Missouri, North Carolina, and Washington, D.C.[54][55]

XP-2

For the company's passenger testing, they created a new vehicle, dubbed "experimental pod 2", or XP-2. The vehicle was designed by Bjarke Ingels Group and Kilo Design.[56]

On November 8, 2020, after more than 400 uncrewed tests, the firm conducted the first human trial with Josh Giegel, its co-founder and CTO, and Sara Luchian, Director of Passenger Experience, as the first passengers at a speed of 172 km/h at its DevLoop test site in Las Vegas, Nevada.[8][9] The test was conducted in a near-vacuum environment of 100 Pascals.[57]

In March 2021, Virgin Hyperloop announced that the vehicle would be on display at the Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building in late 2021.[58]

Following successful passenger testing, Virgin Hyperloop unveiled its commercial vehicle design in January 2021.

Planned cooperation

In June 2016 the company announced a memorandum of understanding with the Summa Group and the Russian government to construct a hyperloop in Moscow and has since completed feasibility studies in Moscow and in the Far East.[74]

In August 2016, the firm announced a deal with the world's third largest ports operator, DP World, to develop a cargo offloader system at Jebel Ali in Dubai.[75] On November 8, 2016, the firm announced it had signed a deal with Dubai's Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) to conduct feasibility studies on potential passenger and cargo hyperloop routes in the United Arab Emirates.[28]

By April 2017, the firm had feasibility studies underway in the United Arab Emirates, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Moscow, and the UK.[76] On September 1, 2017, the firm signed a letter of intent with Estonia to cooperate on the Helsinki–Tallinn Tunnel.[77]

In February 2018, the Virgin Group signed an "intent agreement" with the Government of Maharashtra state of India to build a hyperloop transportation system between Mumbai and Pune.[78] In August 2019, the government deemed hyperloop a public infrastructure project and approved the Virgin Hyperloop-DP World Consortium as the Original Project Proponent (OPP), recognizing hyperloop technology alongside other more traditional forms of mass transit. The Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, K. VijayRaghavan, set up a Consultative Group on Future of Transportation (CGFT) to explore the regulatory path for hyperloop.[79]

On July 19, 2018, an Ohio regional planning commission was investigating using hyperloop between airports and potentially between Chicago, Columbus, and Pittsburgh;[80] in May 2020 the commission released the results of their Midwest Connect feasibility study, which found that the route would create $300 billion in overall economic benefits and reduce emission by 2.4 million tons.[81]

In July 2018, Texas officials announced that the state will explore hyperloop technology for a route connecting Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, and Laredo.[82] In June 2019, the firm announced an ongoing collaboration with the Sam Fox School of Washington University in St. Louis to explore proposals for the Missouri Hyperloop.[83][84] In October 2019, Missouri became the first US state to conduct a hyperloop feasibility study,[85] exploring a route between Kansas City and St. Louis.

In December 2019, the State Government of Punjab, India, signed an MoU with the firm to explore a route connecting the Amritsar-Ludhiana-Chandigarh corridor.[86]

In February 2020, the firm signed a partnership agreement with Saudi Arabia to conduct a pre-feasibility study.[87] In September 2020, Virgin Hyperloop signed a partnership agreement with Bangalore International Airport Limited to conduct a feasibility study for a proposed corridor from BLR Airport.[88]