[hyperbovine]

"If the position of the wall deviates from straightness by a few thousandths of an inch, you could crash ... if you lose the vacuum in the tube, everybody in the tube will crash ... the vehicle's compressor ... can't fail, or the pods will crash ... The 5-mile test track is estimated to cost about $100 million, which Hyperloop Transportation Technologies hopes to pay for with its initial public offering (IPO) later this year."

This article will one day be featured in a museum exhibit on laughably divorced-from-reality bubblethink.

[mentat]

Perhaps as an example of journalistic failures? Reading the actual paper this is just not true.

[grecy]

I'm willing to bet there were similar articles about the first commercial airliner, the first space vehicles, and many other difficult problems.

Just because it sounds hard and there are lots of challenges, don't give in to the nay sayers.

[jcfrei]

Exactly. How can you do an IPO without any earnings? NYSE requires at least $10 mil over 3 years before they even list a company - I'm assuming other exchanges are similar. And if they don't list it on a major exchange, I doubt they can raise that amount of money...

[mortehu]

There's an exchange called NASDAQ that have different sets of financial requirements you can satisfy to get listed. Some of them don't require any earnings at all, e.g. Nasdaq Global Select Market, Standard 4.

https://listingcenter.nasdaq.com/assets/initialguide.pdf

[akaij]

My thoughts exactly. It sounds like the co-creator of Maglev thinks he created the ultimate transportation vehicle, and is completely unwilling to accept that while expensive, those problems can be overcome using new technology.

[jonknee]

You could have said the same thing about a guy trying to build a Mars colony...

[danielweber]

AS someone who wants to go to Mars, anyone trying to sell you investment shares in a colonization effort is a scammer.

[jonknee]

That's one of the main reasons Elon Musk hasn't publicly sold shares in SpaceX.

[pbreit]

Are you referring to the over-the-top negativity of an uninvolved spectator?