Elon Musk's
super-fast transportation system could be coming to UK shores.
Hyperloop One told
WIRED that it has been in talks with the UK government about building routes
across the country.
The company said
that "there's been quite a strong response” from the government, and has
since met with Peel Group, which owns the Manchester Canal that connects
Manchester to Liverpool.
If plans went ahead,
the Hyperloop would be able to take you from London to Manchester in a cool 18
minutes, whipping you up the country at 760mph.
Hyperloop One is
also setting its sights on connecting northern cities like Liverpool,
Manchester and Leeds together, so they can effectively become "a single
city".
The super-fast
speeds of the Hyperloop dwarf the current ambitions of the HS2, which is set to
connect London to Manchester in a time of 1 hour 24 minutes.
Construction of the
High Speed track is scheduled to begin in 2017, reaching Birmingham by 2026 and
finally being completed by 2033.
While that may sound
a little slow going, the HS2 will almost definitely materialise before the
Hyperloop, which is still in the prototype stage.
Elon Musk has
described the Hyperloop as “the fifth mode of transportation". The
futuristic design works by shooting pods through vacuum tubes , using magnetic
levitation.
The competition to
design the pods launched last year, with teams from around the world entering.
Now in its second phase, prototypes are currently being tested out in Hawthorne, California.
Despite progress being made, some engineers still remain doubtful that the technology will ever be able to get up to desired speeds.
Not only that, many regulatory requirements would have to met along with lengthy negotiations around acquiring huge amounts land, before the "Concorde of commuting" could be up and running.
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