[RD (OP)]

Can I get a bet on Elon Musk's HyperLoop imploding ? ...

[alancalverd]

Brunel's Atmospheric Railway didn't implode, but rats ate the leather vacuum seals.

This project is likely to founder on capital and maintenance costs, plus the problem of maintaining the geometric integrity of a  structure in an earthquake-prone area. Bits of California move a few inches most days, and whole chunks of countryside rip apart from time to time, quite unpredictably. Railways are fairly tolerant and it's easy to patch a runway, but bent vacuum tubes are a real challenge.

[RD (OP)]

How can the HyperLoop concept be made even more unfeasible/expensive/dangerous ?  : let's build it underground, says Elon ...   
https://electrek.co/2017/07/20/elon-musk-boring-company-build-new-york-washington-dc-underground-hyperloop/

That's the downside of being a billionaire : your inner-circle won't tell you "that's not possible, Elon",
( or "you're wearing too much fake-tan Donald").

[RD (OP)]

This explains a lot ...

https://www.cnet.com/news/elon-musks-strange-strange-ambien-tweet/

[RD (OP)]

That's the downside of being a billionaire : your inner-circle won't tell you ...
...  "you're wearing too much fake-tan Donald").

https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-donald-trump-walks-on-the-south-lawn-of-the-white-news-photo/1199265377

[Petrochemicals]

Infrastructure in railways is a security risk, the entire infrastructure dedicated to the individual trains,  problematic maintainance of the conveyance equipment and itsexpensive, plains are sweep the runway and continue, the air doesnt need maintaining. There is a security reason why the us secret service prefers to fly that drive. One fault on the hyperloop and you have a 1000mph rail replacement problem. Cars are popular because you can go to your own destination, flying cars must be the future ! Computer drive cars going at 200 mph up the m1 to scotland from london will be lots faster than hs2. They had the technology in the 90s to do it so now its easy peasy.

[Bored chemist]

Can I get a bet on Elon Musk's HyperLoop imploding ? ...

I'm fairly sure it won't literally implode.
That's the easy engineering problem to solve, and I think they probably have it sussed. Just use lots of steel and clad it in thick concrete.

However, when they find some other technical problem that they can't fix- like earthquakes or the fact that passengers will need space suits just in case one of the seals on the carriage fails- and the money-men pull the funding, that's when the project will (figuratively) implode

[RD (OP)]

That's the downside of being a billionaire : your inner-circle won't tell you ...
...  "you're wearing too much fake-tan Donald").

AP20211531991878 (crop).png (47.11 kB . 328x138 - viewed 3441 times)
http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Trump/4994f38e9e5344febf9551c9098c945f

[OliVDB]

Yeah, the biggest issue is that you can not - at all - build it in a zone with the slightest seismic risk. That's why one of the biggest, heavy duty tunnels joins France and the UK under the Channel; it's one of the calmest zones in terms of tectonic and volcanic activity. So, if you're excluding all of Japan, California, Korea, Beijing, Italy, and other places, you're losing lots of potential markets, and the ones that aren't excluded may still be wary of that kind of project; for example, Moscow has already a large and efficient metro, and Paris cannot build things too deep underground because of the soil.

Most of Germany could do the trick. I had spent most of last year doing insurance quotes for a big part of this [nofollow] property in Germany, and seismic risks were among the things I took into account, but there are already efficient mass transport services there, that are not as fast as Hyperloop, but that are good enough and replacing them wouldn't justify the billions and billions of euros the project would cost.