[addicted]

The problem with the hyper loop is that it’s not clear it solves any real problems.

For subway style intra city transit the rapid speeds and acceleration are hardly useful since you have many short travel segments. It’s a non starter there.

For inter city travel, the biggest challenge is getting right of way and building infrastructure between the 2 cities. This is hard enough to do for regular HSR, which has far more tolerance than the hyperloop vacuum tube would. It’s not clear how one would solve that for the hyperloop.

[boxed]

> The problem with the hyper loop is that it’s not clear it solves any real problems.

The rest of your comment doesn't back that up. The hyperloop potentially solves the problem of air travel out competing railways even though air travel has enormous environmental costs and generally sucks due to overhead in transits and small cabins.

The problem with hyperloop is as you say actually building it. But that doesn't mean it doesn't solve a problem. It just means it has its own practical problems that aren't even technical.

[gamblor956]

Damn you for going beyond first principles and actually thinking about why something that seems so simple hasn't actually been done before! /s