Hyperloop as a concept first came up in 2013 through the official SPACE X Hyperloop Pod competition. A couple of private companies since then have shown a lot of interest in the path breaking concept and continued to pursue this effort.
One of those is the American based Hyperloop Transportation Technologies which was created using the crowd collaboration concept.
In conversation with ETtech, HTT’s Chairman, Bibop G. Gresta talks about their foray into India, their investments and future plans.
Edited Excerpts
What’s the update on the Hyperloop Transportation from across the world?
We are ready to build and have tested all the components which are ready to be built. We are the only solution that has a proportion and levitation tested. We have the tube manufacturer and the pump ready while there is another company going around the world claiming they have done tests in the desert and going to different countries.
We are the originals; we own the trademark Hyperloop in twenty countries including India. But we need competition, we like competition. I understand why they are doing it by raising so much money, promising so much but good luck to them.
We are in negotiation with twenty countries and we have also signed a contract with Bratislavagovernment to do a study but then we signed a contract for a feasibility study to build Abu Dhabi -Al Ain network.
How do you make this cheap while make it profitable because at the end of the day, you will have costs to take care of?
It’s not about money. The first business plan was designed by 22 of the best financial minds on the planet including people from Harvard and experts from Cargo and transportation. These experts worked in change for stock options. The measure of the cost of the tube is 60% and we can decrease this cost by 3D printing this tube using non carbon steel.
Hyperloop combines renewable energy which includes solar, kinetic and wind energy. There is also the usage of regenerative breaking. The combination of this tech gives enormous amount of power. The capsule there in the smart levitation system does not use electricity. It’s an array of magnets that generates current. You have magnets inside the capsule and nothing on the track so it’s like a Tesla with a linear motor at the centre that can accelerate and these giant magnets that lets it flow.
When you have such an efficient system then we can have some slots which can be given free to the people. The power you consume or generate can subsidize the system. The people working with us for stock options want to create value. We are creating IPs and making profits but this project is not about the money.
That’s the wrong way. After you raise money, what do you do? You spend on your resources. Take the resources, it’s easier. And also, you will have people who really believe in the project. I have the 10 hours a week from the best engineering talent on the planet, instead of having a mediocre engineer for a month. And this is a new way to build companies.
How feasible do you think it is to make a Hyperloop capsule in India within cities?
The minister of transportation - Nitin Gadkari that I met has a Letter of Intent on his table since two weeks. Now it’s in his hand to sign without pressure but he said publicly that he wants to give us the land and he thought I was Elon Musk.
Laughs
We are very happy to address India that has the right amount of density, lack of infrastructure and the willingness for innovation. I found your government very interested but they have to put their money where their mouth is and only then we can see this happen.
We are passed 800 people working on the Hyperloop. This 800 includes the companies of which 25 are from India. There are two companies in India and there are individuals as part of the 25. I can’t disclose it right now because it would be subject to a press release. They are looking at the different aspects of building a Hyperloop. They are in engineering but one is a specialist in tube manufacturing and the other is a pure engineering company.
How do you ensure safety for the passengers inside the vacuum tube?
We have a safety system that can shut section of the tube every kilometer so in case of emergency you can just inject air and open the safety door and exit. There is nothing on the ground that is safe. You are protected in a closed environment. There is no cow stopping it. All of these are computer systems supervised by humans. It’s safe and more efficient.
Do you think renewable energy power output can be predicted and managed in ways that the state’s grid can handle?
We just have a giant power station that happens to transport people. So we build the solar panel on top of the tube. We are collecting energy through wind turbines that we can embed inside the pylons. We can generate water through the dew of the air. We also want to have vertical gardens and embed with Hyperloop.
Now we have 30,000 PSI of resistance in one pylon so we can be resisting 9.2 earthquakes on the Richter scale and we can put upto 7 tubes in one pylon.
What does that mean? In one tube, you can transport 3400 people an hour, 67,000 people a day, 24 million people a year. We can substitute the air flight industry between San Francisco and Los Angeles four times. We can create a system that in the long term can transport half a billion people a year. Good luck to all the Indians who want to have children, we don’t have a problem anymore of transporting people.
What does India need more - Bullet trains or Hyperloop pods?
Don’t do it. I think it would be a big mistake for India. India has the potential to really embrace new technologies. They want to spend what $12 billion on a bullet train? Put $1 billion in Hyperloop. And you have a faster more efficient way to transport people. You won’t need a bullet train. You don’t believe me? Build 10 km and we can show you what it is and then there will be no doubt?
We need to have a feasibility study, that is usually 6-8 months, and then from that moment if you identify the land, having the clearance and guaranteeing the regulation can be approved – and I don’t see why not. We are super safe. We are adopting regulation that is stricter than the air regulation.
So we can have the system up-and-running in 38 months. It is technically feasible to have the first passenger in 38 months. But it also depends on where you are building, how many bridges, tunnels and so on.
What are your future plans?
We are also launching a Hyperloop Academy in India and I am here to talk with Carnegie, as the first one, that can embrace this program. It’s designed for students and teams to participate in the design of the Hyperloop. And we have this program with MIT, Stanford and UCLA among others.
We are partnering with Abu Dhabi University. These programs are designed for these students to actually work with the real Hyper-Master -- team leaders inside our company – who can mentor and coach them and code real tasks and the best student will be hired by Hyperloop. Each university has its own approach in planning the course. But it’s open and if anyone wants to join the academy or sponsor it, we are open to that.
The company of the future will be built like this. We will all be working on two free projects that we are really passionate about instead of being in a cubicle that is a prison of the soul and of the mind. This is what it is right now, a lot of the old school companies and corporate America – it’s a cage.
We are different because we concentrate on passenger and freight. We do not think just freight will be the disruption. Freight is about cost per pound, it is not about speed.
And I can see applications to freight and ports but that is not the first thing you do. We need to shrink distances to expand the human heart. And that is what we want to do. Not make as much money as possible because we are the freaking capitalists of Silicon Valley. If you want to write it, write it because I am in a personal war with these people.
The world will change thanks to the new generation. They are better than us; they care and don’t give a dam about money. They give a dam about creating a better future. And they think we are an entire planet where boundaries do not exist. They are transcontinental and they speak the same language and tjhey want the same things, so they give a big finger to these Silicon Valley guys who think everything is based on consumption and making money.
What kind of funds you have received so far?
In the mean time, we are searching for investors to open an innovation centre in the region. Anyone can invest. And you can invest in anything skills, tools time, and training. Money is the last thing.
We have $100 million raised this time around. But we like the other things more. Because when you give me your time, it is more important than money if you have the talent. Because now you are getting stock options and it’s yours. It’s your company, it’s your passion. And the companies that are participating are more interested than us to be successful. And that’s when innovation happens, when we are on the same page. And this is a message for the young kids, when they tell you that you can’t do something because you don’t have the money, you should show them the finger.
What about Hyperloop One?
So I don’t care about what they do. I talk about us. We have 20 trademarks on the name Hyperloop because we were the first to create a company, a real company. They are stressing the fact that we are not a company. ‘The crowd can’t weld’ they said. But I am sorry, the crowd can weld, it can build amazing things. They said the ‘crowd can’t sign a deal with a sovereign nation’ but I am sorry to say we are the first one to sign a deal with a sovereign nation. The next announcement will freak you out, it will be so surreal. The next announcement will be in the UAE.
We have the trademark, we have the technology. The levitation technology was tested by the Laurence Livermore Lab who spent $50 million to build the track so we didn’t need to. They accused of not building a test track. Well, first we need to see what they built because I don’t know what that was.
We have 15 publicly listed companies working with us and have the inventors of the vacuum pump. We are a different company that does not want to raise as much money as we can and then spend it as fast as we can and announce things every week. We are engineers, we don’t do PR.
But it’s good to have competition. We love competition. I tried to sit down with them to talk about standardization and creating together a regulation. I met the United States Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx and had an amazing talk. He wanted to create a department of Hyperloop and he said it publicly. But he said I know there are a couple of companies trying to do it, so he said come back with them because you can’t be one company asking for regulation.
I tried to sit down with these guys and they said, ‘No, no. This is war. We are going to win it. We are going to crush you.’ How (long pause) delusional (I was thinking of another word) to think that one company will build the hyperloop all over the world.
How delusional, how stupid, how scary could be a world, in which there is one company that could monopolize the entire Hyperloop infrastructure on the planet. I would be scared if that was my company and we wouldn’t allow this.
http://tech.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/technology/hyperloop-not-bullet-trains-are-the-future-of-travel-in-india-htts-bibop/55839464
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