-To my knowledge it's still a completely hypothetical technology without an existing proof-of-concept prototype, so it's unclear how fast it could be brought to maturity.
-Supposing it could be realized as planned it's still unlikely that the initial cost-effectiveness would be better than that of existing, alternative solutions such as the Maglev, Transrapid or even conventional bullet trains, which haven't yet reached their theoretical limitations in speed and efficiency.
An example: At an hypothetical average speed of 960 km/h (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperloop), the Hyperloop could traverse the distance between LA and SF in about 30 mins. For comparison, the current speed record for a TGV is 560 km/h, which yields a theoretical travel time of slightly less than 1 hour for the same route. I think it's questionable whether the 30 minute gain in travel time would justify the large amount or R&D necessary to make the Hyperloop a reality, let alone make this a viable economic undertaking. Of course this doesn't mean that it's impossible (it is not), just that I think it won't become a reality in the near future (but then again, people tend to be horribly wrong when making predictions about this kind of stuff).
-To my knowledge it's still a completely hypothetical technology without an existing proof-of-concept prototype, so it's unclear how fast it could be brought to maturity.
-Supposing it could be realized as planned it's still unlikely that the initial cost-effectiveness would be better than that of existing, alternative solutions such as the Maglev, Transrapid or even conventional bullet trains, which haven't yet reached their theoretical limitations in speed and efficiency.
An example: At an hypothetical average speed of 960 km/h (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperloop), the Hyperloop could traverse the distance between LA and SF in about 30 mins. For comparison, the current speed record for a TGV is 560 km/h, which yields a theoretical travel time of slightly less than 1 hour for the same route. I think it's questionable whether the 30 minute gain in travel time would justify the large amount or R&D necessary to make the Hyperloop a reality, let alone make this a viable economic undertaking. Of course this doesn't mean that it's impossible (it is not), just that I think it won't become a reality in the near future (but then again, people tend to be horribly wrong when making predictions about this kind of stuff).