

Hyperloop proposal: Bad joke or attempt to sabotage California HSR project? - untog
http://stopandmove.blogspot.com/2013/08/hyperloop-proposal-bad-joke-or-attempt.html

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danpalmer
This is an interesting proposal, and I'd be keen to read a constructive (and
less 'emotional') breakdown of the possible things that Musk might have to
gain from the HSR project being ditched.

However, I think it's worth pointing out that the science appears to be fairly
good in the Hyperloop paper. Certainly from my brief read through, it appears
plausible, and on top of that I have yet to see an attack on the actual
mechanism, with most criticisms focussing on the 'politics' surrounding the
idea.

So I'd like to raise a few points to think about on the politics and funding
side of things.

1\. Elon Musk seems to have a fairly good track record of massively optimising
processes and re-inventing manufacturing methods. Tesla factories seem to be
very well engineered themselves, but more importantly is SpaceX which has
managed to reduce the cost of space travel by very significant amounts, I
think it's down to about 25% of what it used to be to re-supply the ISS, and
much of this saving comes from improved manufacturing and testing processes
for the rockets.

2\. Musk also appears to have a good track record of negotiations and dealings
with councils, local authorities (or whatever they are called in the US) which
would help him a lot with getting building permission. From what I can tell
Tesla's network of superchargers will have been mostly a logistics and
negotiation problem, rather than a technological one.

I'm not sure if just anyone could do this for $6bn, but if the science is
shown to be sound, I'd bet that Musk could have a good attempt for under
$10bn, which is still a massive reduction on the $60bn for the HSR project.

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JoeAltmaier
Bullet trains, maglev, airplanes were all a joke until they worked.

