In 2013 the visionary Elon Musk he spoke of capsules “fired” in vacuum tubes for the transport of people or goods, to travel on pylons or underground to eliminate the traffic problem. In the Alpha Papers, Tesla's number one tried to give a first taste of what has become known as the Hyperloop. The supersonic train that should travel at 1,200 km/h but may never become reality.
The dream fails
At least for Hyperloop One, a company founded in 2014 with the aim of carrying out this project and which will instead complete the decommissioning process by the end of the year. All assets are for sale, staff have been made redundant or are leaving the company and intellectual property will be transferred to DP World, a brand based in Dubai which holds the majority shares of the company. Yet the dream of Hyperloop One seemed concrete, with the 2017 test track and test in Las Vegas, the investment of Richard Branson's Virgin and the name change to Virgin Hyperloop One. Millions of dollars invested, few steps forward and in 2022 the decision to abandon passenger transport to focus on goods.
Hyperloop One stops, the others don't
The company has never won a contract, with various companies created over the years in Europe and around the world which, thanks to the licence, have been able to independently develop different technologies. For example Hyperloop Italywinner of a contract for the construction of a connection between Venice and Padua which should see the first projects in January 2024. Italy could therefore be the country with the most advanced Hyperloop technology in the world, a technology that would not be responsible for the failure of American society.
In Italy there is hope
This is underlined by Bibop Gresta, CEO of Hyperloop Italia: “Technology has nothing to do with it. The papers and the studies say so. It is absurd that we continue to argue that technology has something to do with it. The truth behind this failure? I think another reason had weight: the fact that we beat them in Veneto, where we won the construction of a line between Venice and Padua. With that project, Italy will become the country with the most advanced Hyperloop projects in the world.”
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