End of the line for Hyperloop One

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Headline: Bloomberg reported last week that Hyperloop One, unable to secure commercial contracts, has officially closed its doors.   

So what: The release of Elon Musk’s Hyperloop Alpha whitepaper in 2013 triggered a surge of enthusiasm around hyperloop technology. The tubular levitation transit design could just as easily have come from a sci-fi novel, promising to whisk people and cargo around from city-to-city at speeds upwards of 700 mph, but the concept in fact has its roots in the 18th century. British inventor, George Medhev, filed a patent in 1799 for a system that could move goods with compressed air through a network of iron pipes. London, Dublin, and Paris all went on to install various pneumatic cargo railways through the 19th century until US aerospace engineer, Robert Goddard, became one of the first to design a hyperloop system in the early 1900s, which Musk acknowledged in his 2013 whitepaper. From there, a series of post-WWII projects, as well as a 1990s MIT effort to build a vacuum tube train, all failed to get off the ground (credit Railway Technology for their writeup on a journey through the history of hyperloop technology).

Under the surface: Contrary to popular belief, Hyperloop One had no official ties to Elon Musk, other than drawing on inspiration from his whitepaper (Musk’s The Boring Company is a distinct infrastructure play ‘boring’ tunnels). Co-founded by Iranian-American entrepreneur and venture capitalist, Shervin Pishevar and former SpaceX employee, Brogan BamBrogan, Hyperloop One has had a tumultuous journey. It was originally founded in 2014 as Hyperloop Technologies before changing its name to Hyperloop One in 2016 and then again to Virgin Hyperloop One after an investment from Richard Branson’s company in 2017, only to revert back to the Hyperloop One name in 2022. Having raised $450 million from Dubai-based DP World, Richard Branson, and other prominent VC firms, the company first offered to reinvent passenger transit but pivoted to moving cargo only. The company enticed investors and the general public with its visionary hope to end traffic, reduce emissions, and transform urban and transcontinental travel. Despite the enthusiasm, the company failed to secure any contract to build an operational hyperloop, Bloomberg reported.

• Hyperloop One was not the only company trying to bring this technology to market: HyperloopTT, Hardt, Nevomo, Transpod, and more are also trying to make this dream a reality.

• An industry association formed in late 2022 with the mission to, “actively promote the widespread adoption of hyperloop as a collective transportation solution that offers speed, safety, and sustainability.”

• While all firms differ slightly in how they’re embracing the technology, as of Dec-2023, none have been able to move past feasibility studies into an operational commercial contract.

Net, net: Maybe it is the general tightening underway amidst recent macroeconomic pressures (adios, free money). Or perhaps the hyperloop technology itself is still ahead of its time, unable to cross Geoffrey Moore’s chasm into a mainstream market. Whatever the case, the hyperloop technology has a ways to go on its quest to reinvent point-to-point transportation.

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