It's not necessarily a bad thing to have dissenting opinions. $100m is a LOT of money, especially for an experiment. As an IPO, to raise that amount of cash at what is essentially an angel-round's worth of information seems... aggressive. Cool idea? Sure. Doesn't mean everyone has to jump on board. An echo chamber isn't helping anyone either.
I could see this becoming a new way to transport goods but as outlined in the hyperloop white papers there is little room for error when transporting people and I'm not so sure that's the best, initial approach.
I think using this as a delivery system first, prove it out and increase safety as you go along is the way to go. It should be far cheaper to do it on physical goods first (hell you may even be able to skimp on the safety in some aspects), make lots of money transporting things and then work on a people version.
We'd like to think that there is little error when it comes to transporting people, but most (if not all) of our current means of transportation are prone to accident. Here's some stats:
- For planes, there were 4,394 near-misses in 2012 [1]
- There were an estimated 5,419,000 automobile accidents in 2010, just in the US, resulting in 32,999 deaths [2]
- And the recent Amtrak train derailment, which could have been prevented (although why the prevention mechanism needs to be in the track, and not on the train itself seems strange). [3] There is also an estimated 2,280 collisions at public/private crossings resulting in 267 deaths in 2014. [4]
The question in my mind is whether the proposed Hyperloop system would be more prone to accident than our current systems of transit. I doubt our current means of transit would fare well under some of the proposed scenarios in the comments.
Oh I'm in complete agreement with you I just think it would be cheaper / more profitable to initially transport goods (saving money on safety features you may need for people) and then using that to build up to people transportation. Rather than hoping an IPO gives them enough money just for a test track I'd rather them hope for far less money and test transporting non-humans.
As opposed to Elon Musk being a sacred cow who we cannot criticise at all without being attacked/downmodded?
The Hyperloop, to put it generously, has a lot of "unanswered questions" and practical limitations. Just considering the safety (and escape) of this thing takes you into areas that raise legitimate concern.
I'm not going to discount it completely with aircraft still around and failing as badly as they fail, it might be workable, I just want to see some figures on how much it will cost Vs. Maglev (a technology already deemed too expensive to deploy on the medium to large scale), and more so how much it will cost to make it safe.
Would I love to go across the continental US in a few hours? Heck yeah. Will I be able to afford it if it has Concord's ticket price? Likely not, I'll fly.