The demise of Hyperloop One and the future of high-speed transport
Marketplace Tech
Marketplace
4.5 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 17 January 2024
⏱️ 8 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
While Marketplace’s Lily Jamali was at CES last week in Las Vegas, she took her first ride on the Vegas Loop, built by Elon Musk’s the Boring Co. In 2013, Musk floated the concept of a hyperloop as a way for people to travel long distances at superfast speeds via pods in vacuum-sealed tubes. The Vegas Loop, as Lily found out, is not that. Developing actual hyperloop technology is hard and costly. Just ask Hyperloop One, a startup that recently shut down after a decade of trying. Lily recently spoke with Bloomberg’s Sarah McBride about Hyperloop One’s demise and what it means for the tech sector’s larger ambition to create hyperloop transport systems.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | RIP, Hyperloop 1. |
| 0:04.3 | From American Public Media, this is Marketplace Tech. |
| 0:07.4 | I'm Lily Jamale. At C. E.S. last week, I took my first ride on the Vegas Loop. |
| 0:22.0 | West Hall, Straight Down. It was built by Elon Musk. my first ride on the Vegas Loop. |
| 0:22.5 | West Tall Straight Down. |
| 0:24.0 | It was built by Elon Musk's The Boring Company. |
| 0:27.2 | In 2013, Musk floated the Hyperloop |
| 0:30.4 | a way for people to travel long distances at super fast speeds via pods and vacuum sealed tubes. |
| 0:37.0 | This was not that. |
| 0:40.0 | Wait, is this what I think it is or am I very confused? |
| 0:43.0 | Because what I'm seeing right now is what looks like a bunch of Tesla cars |
| 0:48.0 | that are just going to drive me into a tunnel. |
| 0:52.0 | Developing actual hyperloop technology |
| 0:54.8 | is proving really hard. |
| 0:56.9 | Just ask Hyperloop 1, a startup |
| 0:59.2 | that recently shut down after a decade of trying as Bloomberg Sarah McBride found out. |
| 1:05.0 | They had trouble establishing credibility and the second thing was the technology was so advanced people kept doubting that it would ever get done and nobody |
| 1:17.2 | took that leap of faith to build it. So this is the company where in its very |
| 1:22.1 | earliest days there was a bizarre situation where the chief technology officer and co-founder came into work one day and found a noose curled up on his desk and there was a |
| 1:36.8 | lawsuit, all the co-founder suing each other. |
| 1:41.1 | That guy eventually got fired. Then there was a former executive from |
| 1:46.8 | Cisco running the company. He left. They brought in a former executive from the high transit system in Hong Kong. |
... |
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