Connect with us

News

Hyperloop One plans global distribution system to rival Amazon Prime

Published

8 years ago

on

Speaking to the press at CES 2017, Hyperloop One executives laid out their vision for a new global distribution system that will revolutionize the way goods are delivered to markets worldwide. “Just think of Hyperloop as broadband for transportation,” Rob Lloyd, CEO for Hyperloop One, tells Inverse. “If you think of it as broadband for transportation you suddenly unlock a massive amount of change, and new applications. New thinking,” he added emphatically.

Semi-finalists announced

That “broadband of transportation” took a step toward reality on January 6 when Hyperloop One announced 35 semi-finalists in its Hyperloop One Global Challenge. Announced last May, the Challenge attracted entries from 2,600 teams of engineers and urban planners eager to convince the company that their’s was the perfect location for a Hyperloop demonstration project. One group proposed linking Dubai with Abu Dhabi. Another envisioned a Hyperloop link from Russia to China.

The 35 semi-finalists will present there ideas at three locations later this year — February 28 in New Delhi, April 6 in Washington, D.C., and April 27 in London. Hyperloop One will whittle the list of finalists down to about 6 finalists after those presentations are completed.

Government leaders, including transportation officials from the incoming Trump administration, will be invited to regional presentations. “Our instincts are that the work that we’re doing is going to be extremely well received when the people get into place,” Rob Lloyd says. “I think we’re going to be a very, very important part of the next three or four years in terms of the potential infrastructure that U.S. looks at.”

Feasibility studies will follow, but they are just a one step in the process. “We’re not in the business of doing studies, we’re in the business of looking for hyperloops that can be built,” Rob Lloyd says. “We want to have three routes in production in the next five years.”

Advertisement

Nick Earle, who oversees global field operations for Hyperloop One, tells Inverse, “This is not just about moving things and people quicker. This is [about] the business models that are disrupted — and enabled — by Hyperloop transportation.”

Autonomous cars included

There is another tie-in between Elon Musk — who originally conceived of the Hyperloop idea — and Hyperloop One’s vision. The company foresees autonomous cars — one of Musk’s highest priorities — as being able to travel inside the Hyperloop. “Autonomous cars will actually be able to go inside the Hyperloop. You actually can do door-to-door like never before,”  says Nick Earle. That idea came out of a partnership between the company and Dubai’s Road and Transport Authority.

“It’s Amazon Prime on steroids,” Earle says. “You don’t have to use a fleet of airplanes, you don’t have to use warehouses outside of cities to store goods, because you have to truck them in to meet that one hour deadline that’s in the contract for Amazon Prime.”

“Kitty Hawk Moment” coming in April

A full scale test of the Hyperloop One prototype system is planned for April of this year. “It’s one thing for us to talk about building it, it’s something different for you to actually go build it,” Josh Giegel, President of Engineering for Hyperloop One, says. The demonstration will be fully open to the public.

“For us, taking this concept and actually building it, and testing it, and showing people — allowing them to see it, to touch it, to smell it if they want — is really, really important,” Giegel explains. “We’ve felt that way for a long time, that it’s one thing for us to talk about building it It’s something different for you to actually go build it.”

Advertisement

Tribute to Elon Musk

Hyperloop One acknowledges a debt to Elon Musk, the serial tech visionary who first envisioned the Hyperloop concept and made his thoughts public in a published white paper in 2013. “I think he’ll always have a big part of it.,” says Giegel. “We’ll forever be indebted to him for giving us kind of the idea, but we definitely changed the technology quite a bit from the original white paper.”

“It’s more than just a train, or a pod in a tube. We’re taking it to a level of connectivity and really being the high speed backbone of the future transportation network.”

Related Topics:

"I write about technology and the coming zero emissions revolution."

Comments

News

Here’s where Waymo is launching autonomous robotaxis next

Waymo has its sights set on three new U.S. cities in the months to come.

Published

9 hours ago

on

March 25, 2025

By

Credit: Waymo

Google parent company Waymo has announced plans to bring its self-driving robotaxis to yet another U.S. city, adding to the list of those it plans to deploy the service to in the next several months.

On Tuesday, Waymo announced in a press release that it will be bringing its autonomous ride-hailing vehicles to Washington D.C. in 2026, after it recently announced plans to start deploying the services in Atlanta, Georgia, and Miami, Florida, sometime in 2025. The D.C. services will utilize the Waymo One app, unlike some of the cities which will roll out through a partnership agreement.

“Waymo One is making fully autonomous driving a reality for millions of people across the U.S.” said Tekedra Mawakana, Waymo Co-CEO. “We’re excited to bring the comfort, consistency, and safety of Waymo One to Washingtonians, those who work and play in the city every day, and the millions of people from around the world who travel to the District every year.”

The company says it plans to continue working closely with legislators on regulations needed to operate driverless vehicles in D.C. Additionally, Waymo says it’s currently operating over 200,000 fully autonomous, paid driverless ride-hails per week, as Tesla and others aim to enter the commercial robotaxi space in the coming months.

READ MORE ON WAYMO: Ex-Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla, Cybercab: ‘They’re a car company with a driver-assist system’

Advertisement

“I’ve experienced firsthand how safely the Waymo Driver operates around pedestrians, cyclists, and other vulnerable road users,” writes Jonathan Adkins, the CEO of the Governors Highway Safety Association. “Waymo has worked with GHSA and our first responder network as they’ve expanded their service, always putting safety first. As someone who walks to work almost every day, I’m excited to share the road with Waymo in Washington, D.C.”

Waymo also recently launched its robotaxi services will deploy in a partnership with Uber in Austin, Texas, where Tesla also has a so-called Gigafactory and plans to roll out its own robotaxi services later this year. The company currently operates paid driverless ride-hailing or early testing in the following cities, primarily in the U.S.:

The news also comes as Tesla aims to roll out its first unsupervised drives with its in-house Full Self-Driving (FSD) software this summer, along with rolling out initial robotaxi ride-hailing services. While the company doesn’t currently operate any paid ride-hailing like Waymo One, the company’s vehicles can generate real-time training data from drivers with FSD Supervised engaged.

Waymo study analyzes collisions with vulnerable road users

Continue Reading

News

Tesla Superchargers open to Hyundai’s EVs in the U.S.

Hyundai and Genesis are the latest brands to gain access to Tesla’s charging network.

Published

11 hours ago

on

March 25, 2025

By

Tesla’s Superchargers are now officially open to Hyundai’s electric vehicles (EVs) across the U.S., adding to the wave of auto brands that can now charge on the once-exclusive network.

In a press release on Tuesday, Hyundai announced that owners of the Kona electric, Ioniq hatchback, Ioniq 5, Ioniq 5 N, and Ioniq 6, can charge at Tesla Superchargers in the U.S. using a CCS to NACS adapter, which the company is offering complimentary to owners. The news is set to give access to roughly 20,000 Superchargers in the U.S., as Tesla continues to roll out access to non-Tesla EV brands across the industry.

Hyundai says that those who purchased their EVs prior to January 31, 2025 will begin receiving emails on how to claim the free NACS adapters starting the week of April 7. The news also comes after Hyundai was the first automaker to debut a native NACS port with the Ioniq 5, beginning late last year.

Advertisement

READ MORE ON HYUNDAI: Hyundai dives into the robotaxi business with TX-based startup

“Starting today, more Hyundai EV customers will have access to 20,000 Tesla Superchargers across North America, doubling their fast-charging options,” says Olabisi Boyle, Hyundai North America’s SVP of product planning and mobility strategy. “This move improves the public charging experience by giving our customers even more choice. It’s a vital part of our commitment to ease America’s transition to electric vehicle ownership.”

Currently, the news only applies to Superchargers in the U.S., though one spokesperson from the automaker told Teslarati that more details are expected to come about the launch of access in Canada later this year.

Tesla now lists Hyundai, and its subsidiary Genesis, on its website as EV brands that are able to charge at its Superchargers, along with several others which have been added in the past several months such as Polestar, Volvo, Mercedes-Benz, Lucid, and Rivian, among others.

Hyundai also had record auto sales in the U.S. in 2024, with general retail sales up 4 percent and EV sales up 13 percent year over year.

Advertisement

Hyundai prepares for Trump’s tariffs with billion-dollar investment in the United States

Continue Reading

Elon Musk

Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s simple message to vandals

Published

11 hours ago

on

March 25, 2025

By

Justin Pacheco, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Tesla CEO Elon Musk had a simple and straightforward message to the vandals who continue to damage cars, showrooms, and Superchargers that the company and its owners utilize during an All-Hands meeting last week.

For the first time, Tesla and Musk broadcasted on X an All-Hands meeting the company held with its employees.

It seemed to be a justified response to skeptics and investors who have said that Musk has spent more time worrying about the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) than Tesla.

During the meeting, Musk showed the company’s roadmap for the remainder of 2025 and into 2026 and aimed to resolve any sort of skepticism regarding his commitment. He told the employees to “hang onto their stock,” and commented on Tesla’s future impact:

“It’s very difficult like for people in the stock market, especially those that look in the rearview mirror — which is most people — to imagine a future where suddenly a 10 million vehicle fleet has five to ten times the usefulness. It’s so profound and there’s no comparison with anything in the past that it does not compute. But it will compute in the future.”

Advertisement

However, Musk did not stop there. He also had a message for those who have gone out of their way to key, damage, and sometimes even destroy Tesla vehicles and showrooms.

Several locations have been hit with gunfire, Molotov cocktails, and other things, while owners are reporting petty vandalism like keying and slashing tires more frequently now than ever.

Musk’s message to the vandals was simple:

“This is psycho. Stop being psycho!”

He continued:

Advertisement

“If you read the news, it feels like, you know, Armageddon. It’s like, I can’t walk past the TV without seeing a Tesla on fire. Like, what’s going on? Some people, it’s like, listen, I understand if you don’t wanna buy our product, but you don’t have to burn it down. That’s a bit unreasonable.”

Tesla’s biggest haters have continued to spew violence toward the company and owners of its cars, with some even putting on bumper stickers that read things like “I bought this before Elon went crazy!” to hopefully divert attackers.

The company also has the help of the federal government. The FBI has already established a task force to help investigate instances of vandalism and violence against Tesla. Additionally, President Trump has said attacks against the company are being considered as domestic terrorism.

Continue Reading

Trending