What's Happening (And Not Happening) With Hyperloop | Answers With Joe

this video is supported by raycon [Music] what you working on oh nothing just you know the biggest revolution in transportation technology in the history of mankind that's it huh i've been working on this all night it required me to take a mechanical engineering class and a physics class and had to learn some some cad software and stuff but it's totally worth it because i think this is going to change the world as we know it want to see it oh i don't here oh please show me i call it omega tube it starts with a hyperloop but like like a big hyperloop like like a kilometer wide viper a kilometer wide tube yeah with a vacuum yeah yeah and inside that is another tube with a maglev track in it just like a regular hyperloop that travels at 500 miles an hour okay but inside that tube is another tube a hyperloop inside a hyperloop okay and inside that tube is a railgun that shoots at another 1500 miles an hour okay still with me okay and inside of that tube is another tube and inside of that tube is a falcon 9 rocket that can go an extra 2500 miles an hour and inside of that is a pulse nuclear rocket that can travel at 5 000 extra miles an hour you could get from new york to la in like 30 seconds so what'd you think our tree's still up oh yeah i should probably take that down but the idea though oh it's garbage yeah i'll burn this in the backyard [Music] the hyperloop few things split a crowd more than this crazy idea of a vacuum tube with a pod traveling faster than a commercial jet some people think it's the future others think it's a literal pipe dream it's been discussed on and off here and there on this channel for a while now but there's actually been some some recent news about it so i figured it was worth giving it a little bit more air time so just in case you don't know what the hyperloop is it's basically a high-speed train traveling through a tube at vacuum pressure there are many different ways of doing this as we'll get into here in a second but the basic idea is that you can get a train to go a whole lot faster if you can just remove all that pesky air around it like whenever you talk about space flight or orbital speed the the speeds at which you're traveling are just out of this world yeah i just did that but the reason you can go so fast is because there's no air to push against there's just nothing creating any friction for you to work against which is why when you start going back into the atmosphere even in that super high atmosphere that's really thin it's still you're going fast enough that it creates a plasma around you the air just bursts into flames as you hit it so it's kind of like a way of creating space-like conditions here on earth which is why it's easy to see why a rocket guy like elon musk might be into it he drew up a white paper for it back in 2012 and he described it as a combination between a concord a railgun and an air hockey table which might not be the best comparison because concords are out of business railguns still don't really exist and air hockey is uh well air hockey is pretty awesome actually but the thing is elon drew out this white paper and he drew some interest in this project and then he just kind of made it open source and walked away from it and if i may editorialize for just a second look elon musk is a very very polarizing figure so a lot of people discount hyperloop right out of hand because anytime somebody talks about hyperloop they automatically bring up elon musk it's practically called elon musk's hyperloop elon musk's revolutionary transit system the hyperloop elon musk elon musk elon musk [Music] and the more i hear this the more it bugs me because elon musk isn't really working on this spacex has hosted some competitions on a test track but for the most part it's other companies and university groups that are working on it elon was too busy at the time with tesla and spacex and the boring company and neuralink and open ai and at astra and having android babies and denying covet and getting covet and complaining about pronouns he's a busy guy is what i'm saying but it's not even completely his idea it's just sort of an iteration on a vac train and the idea behind vac trains have been around for a very long time yeah you'd have to turn the history books all the way back to 1799. yeah 1799. that's how long the idea of a vac train has been around in 1799 a fellow by the name of george medhurst looked at the steam locomotive which was brand new at the time still being developed really and decided he could do better he came up with what he called the atmospheric railway a tube that would have a vacuum placed in front of it and thereby create a differential of pressure sucking the train forward and while this idea never really took off there were some working versions that were created out there in fact there's one that's still in existence at an airport in brazil meadows later developed the idea further by publishing a paper titled a new method of conveying letters and goods with great certainty and rapidity by air yeah he basically invented the pneumatic tube system that you see at banks and and pharmacies and stuff like that which is kind of cool around the turn of the century michael vern the son of jules verne imagined a ride on the boston to liverpool pneumatic tubes company in a short story titled an express of the future in fact one of the first subways in new york was the beach pneumatic tube line in 1870 but it was only one car and it only lasted a few years also robert goddard one of the early rocket pioneers wrote a short story for creative writing class in college about a high-speed maglev back train in a story he called the high speed bet boris weinberg built the first prototype back train at tom's polytechnic university in 1914 and the idea would float around here and there for most of the 20th century in the 1970s the rand group started pushing for a vac train system but ultimately it didn't get off the ground so a lot of ways the vac train is like the monorail this great idea that's just never really delivered on the idea what's it called once again [Music] so by the time elon wrote the hyperloop paper in 2012 the idea had been around the block a few times like your mom the main innovations he brought to the idea was instead of using a maglev system in a vacuum he's used a mirror vacuum in what are called air bearings or air skis basically once the pod got going fast enough it funneled the air underneath the pod and then just rode on a cushion of air this is the air hockey table part of the description and that part of the equation has been mostly dropped by the people who are developing this at this point most of them are just going with a traditional maglev system i kind of feel like i should explain what a mag-glass system is just in case it stands for magnetic levitation and it basically works out the same principle as when you were a kid and you would push one magnet around by repelling it off of another magnet you know except in this case it uses giant electromagnets in the track and on the train to allow the train to just float above the track reducing friction down to almost nothing and the train's pushed forward by alternating repelling and attracting electric fields so there's not really any moving parts by the way you take that idea and roll it up and you basically have a description of the motor that powers electric cars there's various versions of maglev like the linear induction motor and the linear synchronous motor but the point is they're electrics they're emission free and they let the train go extremely fast how fast up to 375 miles an hour on a superconducting maglev which i should say 600 kilometers per hour because there's none in the united states although they are popular in china japan and korea which boo by the way because that could get from dallas to houston in 45 minutes boo but if it goes this fast while still pushing through our atmosphere just imagine how fast that could go in a vacuum and that's that's basically what hyperloop is it's a maglev train and a vacuum tube but if you want to talk celebrity billionaire entrepreneurs that are into hyperloop you shouldn't be looking at elon musk you need to be looking at richard branson branson's company virgin bought out the early startup hyperloop one and began pursuing the concept under their new name virgin hyperloop because unlike elon musk virgin has nothing else going on and virgin actually has some builds going on right now including one in india to connect mumbai to pune i believe that's how it's pronounced it's a 100 mile hyperloop and it's being funded by saudi money feel free to read into that however you will and as of right now they've got projects being considered all around the world including in the usa canada mexico united kingdom and others in india there's also cargo versions of hyperloop being considered which i can imagine lex bezos being interested in but all that being said virgin's making some great headways and they're already doing some tests which as elon always says you know everything works in a lab that doesn't mean it's going to work out in the real world but we'll see if they come up with more concepts and we'll see what works out in the future and if they do manage to pull it off they will finally make possible an idea that's been floating around since 1799 which is kind of amazing when you think about it but they aren't the only people working on this hyperloop transportation technologies is based out of toulouse france with a commercial prototype in the uae and a cargo prototype in the port of hamburg germany they're looking to not only get people places faster but are things as well these guys incorporate some of elon's ideas like integrating solar panels into the tubes and they use what they call a passive maglev system it uses a magnet arrangement called the halbach array to make them stronger that combined with some other proprietary tech they called inductrak one of their bigger projects in the works is the chicago cleveland and pittsburgh route and they've done some tests and determined that a hyperloop would have a net economic positive but this was their own analysis so grain of salt transport is one of the more sci-fi looking projects but they're also way behind the last two it uses a couple of propulsion methods including an axial compressor at the front that diverts air out the back and uses an ultra high speed contactless power transmission that they call quantum power they also have a self-canting mechanism they call jet glide that allows it to easily rotate in tight curves like most of the hyperloop tech it's a low pressure tunnel that allows for super fast speeds up to a thousand kilometers an hour they seem to have a good team together but they also seem to be lagging as they're not doing a full test by 2022-2023 heart hyperloop has some big plans they want to create a 10 000 kilometer european hyperloop network and they've already built a fully functional test track with fully functional core hyperloop systems installed such as the levitation propulsion lane switch in the vacuum environment now there's a few things about their approach that are unique for one thing their pods are actually suspended from the tracks above the pod the other is there's incorporates lane switching technology which i have no idea how that works but this would allow them to branch routes from one line to another more like a subway system in fact they seem to be thinking more about how to integrate their system with traditional infrastructure they also use a permanent magnet propulsion system which is more expensive but far more efficient so yeah big plans but at the moment they've only accomplished a low speed test and i mean low like grandma on a sunday slow but they're working to build a coalition of private and public companies working together to get hyperloop done in the best way possible called the hyperloop development program but as of right now they've got a long way to go xelarose is similar and designed to transpod and that it uses an air compressor partly for propulsion their thing seems to be reducing the cost of the track itself by spacing the electromagnets out more and relying the air to do more of the work this also means that their tubes don't have to be depressurized as much as other tubes which cuts down on cost but it's also safer more like flying in an airplane but either way they're a little bit behind the others they don't even have a test track built yet that i'm aware of now one concern is that each one of these companies would have to have their own infrastructure because they all use different systems of propulsion you know it's not like a road or even a train track where literally anything can can ride on it and everything's fine you know you can't switch from a passive maglev to an active maglev to a linear induction maglev and everything be okay so hart zelaros transpod and another early player hyperpoland have formed a joint technical community called jtc20 to create some hyperloop standards across europe in case you haven't noticed there's a lot going on in europe with hyperloop yes lots going on but also lots of reasons to be skeptical when it comes to hyperloop criticism it's kind of hard to distinguish between how much of it is legit criticism of the technology and how much of it is just elon musk hate which again is ironic because he's not really that involved with this and a lot of the nelson hahas that i've seen directed toward hyperloop have to do with the rudimentariness of the technology and the demonstrations that have been so far although i don't feel like that's really fair because they are just demonstrations and prototypes and they're just testing out specific parts of the technology i mean comparing these tests with what hyperloop could be to me is like comparing the apple newton to the iphone 12 you know everything has to start somewhere but yes there are major issues to contend with if hyperloop is ever going to become a legitimate form of transportation first and foremost is the vacuum tube have you ever seen a tank implode yeah have you ever wanted to be shrink wrapped by steel yes nature abhors a vacuum and if you're inside of that vacuum nature abhors you it's difficult to keep a freight tanker at vacuum pressure imagine hundreds of miles of tube and then there's the temperature differentials between day and night that cause expansion and contraction plus the shock waves of the train going through over and over again metal fatigue is definitely a thing a lot of the criticisms i've heard about the hyperloop involved the threat of terrorism that somebody could take it down really easily i mean just shooting a bullet at it would completely take out a whole section of it so that's that's valid but i think even beyond that it's just the structural challenges of wear and tear and maintenance over time not only would that become really expensive but you just have to constantly stay on top of that to prevent some kind of disaster plus keeping a vacuum pressure in such a large tube over a long period of time would take a lot of energy i think that might actually remove any of the green arguments for hyperloop now there is an option that could help with that and this will probably make the whole thing a little bit more confusing but tunnels because along with elon being brought up whenever hyperloop is mentioned i also see the boring company being brought up whenever hyperloop is mentioned is if the boring company was there to create tunnels for hyperloop which is not really the point i mean correct me if i'm wrong but i've never really seen elon say that one is made for the other yeah the boring company was always involved with just shuttling cars around in regular tubes there's nothing vacuum pressured about them that i've ever seen so they don't really have anything to do with each other but that being said tunnels being bored through solid rock might have more structural stability than a metal or fiberglass tube so there is an opportunity there and then there's the issue of speed for human travelers you know we're talking about going 500 miles an hour and trains do derail or detube i guess in this case i mean look astronauts on the space shuttle are traveling 17 000 miles an hour but they're like hundreds of miles away from anything else now of course every time human transportation is leveled up in speed there's been arguments that it's not safe because it's so much faster and all those different transportation methods have been made safe so maybe this is another example of that and there are other problems like land rights i mean if you think it's easy to take over farmland then you've never met a rancher who hates the system so that's going to be a long and costly process which is one of the reasons why high-speed train is not taking off more in the united states now many say that hyperloops could just travel right alongside our existing you know highway infrastructure but the turns on the hyperloop because they're going so fast are going to have to be so wide that's going to be practically impossible and last but probably most important is the argument that when it all comes down to it the economics just might not be there ultimately you have to sell enough seats to make the whole venture profitable and when it all comes down to it these pods just don't carry as many people as say a plane or a train now what we might see is cargo hyperloops for manufacturing and shipping hubs if it's that much faster than airplanes then that might actually be a feasible option you know we could work out all the kinks in the cargo systems before we ever put people on there and it would definitely increase confidence in potential human passengers in hyperloop if we'd been doing it with cargo for a while and it almost had been proven safe and that might be kind of cool when you think about it you know those those pneumatic tubes that i mentioned earlier about you know the banks and the pharmacies and stuff like that was kind of a thing back in the day buildings were built with these massive pneumatic tube systems so somebody at the top floor could deliver a message down to the people at the bottom floor or the middle floors or whatever i mean it was like it was like the internet of its day who know maybe that's how we'll move things around in the future we'll we'll board tunnels throughout the the country and just fling stuff around from one place to another underneath the surface you know fewer trucks on the road fewer planes in the sky it's not the worst idea but i think for a lot of people when it comes down to it hyperloop is just the next next big thing you know it's and it's become this this big cash grab you know we've seen so many disruptions to fundamental infrastructure over the last few decades that everybody wants to be a part of the next one and that leads to crass opportunism at the best straight up scams at the worst so look i get the criticism and as i just mentioned there are many valid ones but hey if some saudi prince wants to throw billions of dollars at a burgeoning technology i'm not going to stop them although these are dark times and there's probably a lot of people that could use that money so i get that argument too so maybe in a decade or so we could be whisked around the country in the luxury of a hyperloop or we could be talking about that crazy thing that people flush billions of dollars down the toilet trying to make happen i mean hyperloop would be cool but to be honest i mean for me just just give me a high-speed maglev system that'd make me happy i mean come on cause right now it takes forever to get anywhere in this state which i have to fill the time by listening to podcasts on my raycon earbuds [Applause] [Music] so i've talked about raycon in the past and how i was in the market for new ear buds and that's just happened to be when they reached out to me and it turns out i kind of fell in love with them they're actually pretty great and i've had them now for like eight months honestly i've never had any major problems with them and in fact i just recently got an apple watch and uh it's been kind of great i can go for a run without having to take my phone because this sinks and plays right off my watch it's like magic it's awesome these are the e25 everyday earbuds they fit great they sound awesome they come in a variety of colors and have a bunch of different silicone ear fitting thingies so they'll work with you even if you have weird ears like mine they come in this sweet little magnetic carrying case they just snap right in there and they charge off the battery in the case which gives you six hours of battery life six hours seriously i've only had these run out like once in the eight months that i've had them you know we're all stuck in our homes with each other these days but you can just pop these babies in and you can watch your your your content on your phone or on your tv or whatever and and not bother the other person these will save your marriage i also like that you don't need a phd to use them they're super intuitive they've got buttons on each one of these so if you want to go to the next song just click twice this way go back click twice this way if you want to up the volume three times this way three times that way super easy and they're also like inconspicuous like you wouldn't even know i had them on they're about half the price of comparable ear buds and if you go to buy raycon.com joe scott or just click the link in the description you can get 15 off of that now i i seriously was considering paying quite a bit more for some custom fitted earbuds because i just had so much trouble finding earbuds that actually fit my ears but then these came along they fit great and i've had no problems with them so yeah so yeah if you're in the market for some earbuds and you don't feel like mortgaging your home to pay for them i can definitely recommend these i've had a really great experience with them so yeah get 15 off when you click on the link down in the description below tell them i sent you i think you'll enjoy it all right thanks to raycon for supporting this video and a huge shout out to the answer files on patreon who are forming an awesome community and supporting the channel helping me build a team and everything i want to shout out some names real quick we've got sammy yakubi lg beckwith shelby ray dr what nathan mariona sean gibson jonathan lewis darren fulton trevin bietti uh dave portnoy molly scrivens john katie reed bradley battles tony j dietz and harrison mills thank you guys so much if you'd like to join them get early access to videos exclusive live streams and all kinds of other goodies uh you can go to patreon.com please do like and share this video if you liked it and if this is your first time here google thinks you might like that one and because they're watching you all the time they're probably right so you can go check that out or any of the others that might be recommended here on youtube and if you enjoy them and you're not subscribed uh i encourage you to subscribe because i come back to videos every monday but i guess i'll put it to you guys not that i need to say this but uh do you think hyperloop is gonna happen do you think it's a scam start sharing your thunder foot videos down in there i know you're going to uh but i would like to hear what you think about it so discuss in the comments below all right that's it for now you guys go out there have an eye opening week stay safe and i'll see you next monday love you guys take care

Channel: Joe Scott

Views: 440,515

Rating: 4.9025569 out of 5

Keywords: answers with joe, joe scott, hyperloop, elon musk, richard branson, virgin hyperloop, hardt hyperloop, the boring company, maglev trains, bullet trains

Id: 23n94m96flc

Length: 19min 52sec (1192 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 18 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/VonBraun12]

It truly takes a genius to understand the complex problems behind putting a Supersonic Train inside a near Vaccum tube with only centimeters of Wall clearance. Only a Mastermind would ever be able to say that this is a fundamentely bad idea...

Now lets talk about OP´s comment.

VTOL Electric Autopilor Aircraft ? Really ?

First, lets ignore the problems with VTOL for now and think about that. Do you really want 1000s of Vehicles in the Sky that if subjected to failure will fall down into a City ? And even if the answer to that is yes, the question becomes, why ? What is the economical benifit from flying for your everyday person ? Why throw away all that fancy infrastructure ? Not to mention that those things would need to, well land somewhere. Another problem that comes to mind is the noise but ok.

Now, VTOL. Vertical Takeoff and Landing does not mean the thing has to fly like a plane, but it is sort of expected. Sill, i think a Helicopter is a VTOL so your flying Car would essentially be that. Now, there is the problem of sizes. There is hard limit to that since the tips of the blades cannot spin Super Sonic, so we are talking about fairly large vehciles. Larger than for example a Car.

Rotors need Power, a lot of it. I am gonna say it here and now, there is no way you get enough Batterie power into an SUV sized Craft to come even close to the rangers modern EV´s get. To get that, you need Gasolin or Kerosin. Batteries simply dont have the Energy density for that. And that is good because if they had, you would essentially have a Bomb with you that could self ignite at any moment.

There is just no real way Batteries can beat Kerosin, like ever. So for now, everything that flies (besides small Aircrafts and some small Helicopter´s) will have to run of that stuff. Which sucks but is kind of the only realistic option.

​

Your thoughts are all nice and so on but lets be realistic here and look at the trends. Citys become larger, more people move into them, Public Transport sees the maybe beginning of a new boom. Everything on Earth is pointing towards a future with almost no Personal Car ownership.
Add to that, the Economy. Who will be able to pay for that ? Predections have it that the world population will plato somewhere between 11 and 12 Billion people. We see an almost exponential growth to the net worth of Companys and "The Rich become Richer". Just as a comp, Kings and Lords of the 1800s look like minimum income people compaired to Jeff you can go fuck yourself Bezos and Elon i think i am the savior of Humanity Musk. That wont change anytime soon.
Meaning, people in the Future will have less money. So, how are they gonna pay for fancy flying cars ?

​

Now lets actually talk about the Hyperloop a bit.

Bad idea. Just build a Bullet Train or Maglev if you want something fancy.

[u/mrmonkeybat]

I like this video for being a lot more fair and balanced than Thunderfoot the Musk hater, or the Musk worshipers on the other side. Which usually seem to be the two camps on the subject even though Musk has had little involvement.

As batteries improve. I think VTOL electric autopilot aircraft are the future. As fast as a maglev but no need for all that expensive infrastructure in between you just need the landing pads then you can fly between any pad of your choosing in an almost straight line. Build a house on cheap rural land and you can even put a landing pad in your back yard, which a lot of people will do when the 1hr commute from a city can be over 400km away. Might create a baby boom like the car suburbs of the 50s did. Use a hybrid power source like a free piston engine, and we don't even have to wait for batteries to improve we can develop them with off the shelf tech.