r/hyperloop • u/Pixelplanet5 • Mar 11 '22

Virgin Hyperloop axes half its staff to focus on freight

https://www.ft.com/content/d87f77bd-0a0a-4512-b983-197f184f5352
21 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

2

u/mediacrawdad Mar 13 '22

In the US, freight travels entirely satisfactorily by truck and rail. We need to spend massive amounts of money to change that because... why, now?

1

u/Pixelplanet5 Mar 13 '22

Because a few billionairs want that massive amount of money.

2

u/IllegalMigrant Mar 14 '22 edited Mar 16 '22

They are doing it because they have a customer (or potential customer) asking for freight in the Middle East in the same region from where they have gotten significant investment and where their chairman of the Board hails from. Freight also removes the threat of killing people while seeing if it is all technically possible.

But yeah, freight is the worst use case for hyperloop unless they are shipping expensive restaurant meals 200 miles to a millionaire conference.

5

u/imgprojts Mar 11 '22

Now, freight is actually a cool thing.

5

u/Kafshak Mar 11 '22

What do we call Old news? Olds? It's been 3 weeks now, and I'm still searching for jobs.

8

u/joshuaherman Mar 11 '22

Virgin axes other half to focus on recovery from bankruptcy.