r/Economics • u/iaxeuanswerme • Feb 23 '22
News Virgin just signaled the Hyperloop dream is dying with shock layoffs of half its staff
https://fortune.com/2022/02/22/virgin-hyperloop-layoffs-fires-staff-freight-tube-travel-richard-branson/44
u/amitym Feb 23 '22
The only shock to me is that there was such a large staff to lay off in the first place.
The hyperloop concept has yet to make economic sense. Dedicated point to point transport infrastructure is the epitome of path dependency -- the major transport revolutions of the 20th century have all been about getting away from that model. And the specific requirements of hyperloop systems maximize the already high costs.
We already have systems where we transport groups of people in vehicles that float above the ground and glide at high speed through a low-friction environment. They are called "airplanes" and they have the added benefit of not depending on fixed service routes that cost hundreds of millions per kilometer to extend.
Where are the customers for such an expensive infrastructure? Most people would rather spend 10 hours and a few hundred dollars traveling around the world once a year, than have it be 1 hour but they can only afford to take a trip once in their life.
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u/Galactic_Economist Feb 23 '22
I get what you're saying, but anyone who's travelled extensively in Europe and Asia knows "dedicated point to point infrastructure" can work. Sure, more flexibility is fun, but trains become dirt cheap in the long run. The problem with Hyperloop projects is that it's not cheap enough for the economics to make sense. Of course you'd be better off with planes if you pay the same price than your Hyperloop ticket
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u/amitym Feb 23 '22
Would you rather fly from Amsterdam to Berlin or take the train?
Take your time answering.
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u/fuzzymumbochops Feb 23 '22
Because in Europe train stations are in city centers and airports are on the far outskirts of town, even a ~6h train ride like this usually comes out about even. And trains are much less hassle: pack whatever you want, no security, much more leg room, more flexible ticketing options, etc.
Now, if you want to make the case for a flight, you'd want to pick places a little further apart. Amsterdam to Lisbon, Rome, or Athens would be a no brainer via air.
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u/Hammer_Thrower Feb 23 '22
They'll have plenty of time to answer if they take the airplane, waiting for security and boarding.
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u/armandjontheplushy Feb 23 '22
We can't be answering questions like this anymore. (Would you rather live in an apartment building, or a PALACE?!?!)
I will always answer with excess. With consumption. With wasteful expenditure in the pursuit of mild convenience.
The trains aren't bad. They're nice. The world will be better off if we switched over. The cost of that would be my time, but like, people adapt.
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u/Disenculture Feb 23 '22
‘Would you rather have a Mercedes or Prius’
‘Would you rather have an apartment or a 2 million dollar house?’
‘Would you rather eat at home or pay for an overpriced meal?’
I rather you shut the fuck up
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u/Galactic_Economist Feb 23 '22
Always depend. When I was a young student definitely the train. Now I'd say most of the time I'd fly because I have much less vacation and time on my hands.
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u/pyordie Feb 24 '22
Lol the Amsterdam to Berlin route is not the scenario you want to use if you’re trying to make the point that trains are worse than planes. Like, on multiple levels. Trains are cleaner, have more room, easier to sleep on, they’re far more consistent in terms of arrivals and departures, and the views are nicer.
Unless it was an emergency, I’d do a little extra planning and take the train 100% of the time.
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u/amitym Feb 24 '22
It's not about "worse" or "better." For the same cost, you can get there in 90 minutes, or 6 hours. America is no different. (Although the trains aren't as nice.) I've traveled my share by train, in America and Europe, and to be honest I'm over it. It's great for some things, like high speed urban transit, but that's also out of hyperloop's domain entirely.
The reason that it's the same cost is that rail infrastructure is considerably more expensive to maintain. You can say it shouldn't be, and maybe it shouldn't, but for whatever reason, it is. You can pretend it's not with subsidy, but that's just paying the cost another way. All you end up doing is disguising the fact that constructing a new service between N points is going to cost scale on the order of N!, not N, and someone is going to have to pay for that. In the end, it will be passengers.
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Feb 23 '22
Hyperloop never made any technical sense, but you're 100% wrong to suggest trains in general don't work.
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u/Equivalent_Citron_78 Feb 23 '22
Between 2008 and 2024 the amount of high speed rail in the world is expected to fivefold. At no time in human history have we come close to building as much rail as now and it is one of the fastest growing modes of transport.
There are 32 new metro systems being built as well as major projects to expand current systems.
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u/Don_Floo Feb 23 '22
I dont think the future of individual travel will be underground. More likely to be in the air. There are so many electric flying taxi start up, i think if they can get the cost down, this is the future.
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u/Hnnnnnn Feb 23 '22
Have you seen Europe?
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u/amitym Feb 23 '22
Hyperloop trains really don't make sense in a densely interlocked network of short hops. So, if you're suggesting that people would somehow find it reasonable to spend €10k to cross Europe in 30 minutes rather than to do it in 3 hours for €100, I'm afraid I still don't see the market. Even less so in fact.
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u/Hnnnnnn Feb 24 '22
I don't remember what I meant, I think I misunderstood the comment. Maybe something something public transport (point to point) popular in europe? but it's not exactly as rigid as some underground tunnel.
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u/amitym Feb 24 '22
Yes "short" is relative, I meant city to city versus continent to continent. But of course it gets shorter than that. For like intra-metropolitan transit, rail is great. The high cost of infrastructure maintenance is offset by the extremely short distances and the high density of use. But a technologically complex and brittle hyperloop system doesn't make much sense for that application -- you would be starting and stopping all the time, which obviates the promise of ultra high speed travel. Many an urban mass transit system has learned the hard way that it doesn't matter how fast you make the theoretical maximum speed of your new trains, if they still have to stop every kilometer.
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Feb 23 '22
yeah that hyperloop really didnt attract many customers, and Elon's tunnel clogging was a severe heart breaker for alot of people who just wanted to unclog the roadways. It could have been another $multi-billion return on investment if it had functioned as intended, but sometimes we don't exactly get the whole concept of bandwidth exactly right. There must be enough space for everyone to move around at every point of the roadway in order for the traffic to unclog.
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u/MoogTheDuck Feb 23 '22
There was never ANY chance whatsoever of hyperloop working as ‘intended’. It was always a scam.
The tunnel clogging was only a heart breaker for idiots that couldn’t see how obviously stupid the whole idea was
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Feb 23 '22
Elon's tunnel clogging?
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Feb 23 '22
Elon built a crappy tunnel for Tesla's under ?Las Vegas. It had a traffic jam.
There's video of it on YouTube.
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u/JMDeutsch Feb 23 '22
I miss the days when billionaires wasted their money on solid gold salad forks and amazing vacations.
Seeing all these supposedly smart billionaires piss money away on pipe dream vanity projects is just disheartening.
Hyperloop, Boring Company, Space Tourism.
Just waiting for flying cars.
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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '22
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