[mapt]

"Vacuum tube", aside from being a complete misnomer that's more usually applied to 'pneumatic tube', betrays the concept in one particular area:

It's a battery-powered hovercraft inside of a soft vacuum tube (soft vacuum being within reasonable reach of cheap pumps), with boost segments to get it up to speed.

Usually, vacuum concepts rely purely magnetic levitation & propulsion. The fact that it's an air cushion vehicle in a soft vacuum IS the novel concept here.

[EEGuy]

mapt, this. Maybe I should do the math, but I can't imagine magnetic levitation (not propulsion) running off on-board batteries.