When Elon Musk first proposed the hyperloop–a transportation tube between Los Angeles and San Francisco–the Antiplanner panned the idea saying that it would cost a lot more than Musk claimed, that passengers would be reluctant to be accelerated to high speeds in a windowless capsule, and that a point-to-point technology wouldn’t be able to compete with the door-to-door convenience of the automobile. Recently, New York magazine has published an article confirming the first point and possibly the second.
In “A Kink in the Hyperloop,” writer Benjamin Wallace recounts efforts by venture capitalists to put together a company called Hyperloop One that would build and operate the hyperloop. Most of the article deals with personal frictions between the various players, but a telling statement near the end of the article blows up the entire idea: “The projected cost-per-mile has gone from 6 percent to 60 percent of that of California High Speed Rail.”
Musk’s original cost projection for a San Francisco-to-Los Angeles line was $7.5 billion. If costs have increased ten times, the current projection must be $75 billion.
Musk was motivated partly by increasing cost projections for the California high-speed rail line, which was originally projected to cost under $10 billion and is now expected to cost over $100 billion. (You may see lower cost projections, but those are for a slower route that won’t meet the promise of trains taking just two hours and forty minutes between the two cities.) So, just like the high-speed rail, hyperloop costs have already risen ten times, and the hyperloop hasn’t even done preliminary engineering yet.
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The New York article adds that the company planning the hyperloop has also given up on Musk’s idea that the vehicles would be solar powered. Instead, they expect to buy electricity from the grid like everyone else. This means the operating costs are going to be a lot higher than projected as well.
The one advantage a hyperloop might have over high-speed rail is that it could move both passengers and freight. Freight can’t go on a high-speed rail line because the weight of the freight cars would make them too dangerous to passenger trains. But Wallace also noted that Hyperloop One is looking mainly at freight, not passengers, suggesting that it recognizes the problem of putting passengers in a claustrophobic environment.
Faithful Antiplanner readers know that, when California’s high-speed rail project was projected to cost just $10 billion, it still was estimated to be the highest-cost method of travel in the corridor, more than either flying or driving. At $7.5 billion, the hyperloop probably wouldn’t have done much better. At $75 billion, it would be ridiculously expensive.
Which brings us back to the Antiplanner’s law of infrastructure, as mentioned yesterday: In an area that already has transportation infrastructure, any transportation technology that requires new infrastructure is doomed to fail because it will be unable to compete against technologies using existing infrastructure.
Elon Musk has built a multibillion-dollar fortune running companies that make electric cars, sell solar panels and launch rockets into space. And all the result of some very generous federal funding. His emerging empire: a public-private financing model underpinning long-shot start-ups.
NY State spending 750 million for a solar panel plant. The payoff for the public would come in the form of major pollution reductions, but only if solar panels and electric cars break through as viable mass-market products. For now, both remain niche products for mostly well-heeled customers.
Spece X is another federal customer, but in fairness there’s really no truely private reason for personal spaceflight. On a smaller scale, SpaceX, Musk’s rocket company, cut a deal for about $20 million in economic development subsidies from Texas to construct a launch facility there. Separate from incentives, SpaceX has won more than $5.5 billion in government contracts from NASA and the U.S. Air Force.; but to launch essential satellites. The goal was really human spaceships again since the retirement of the Space Shuttle US astronauts have been piggybacking Russian taxis to space.
But public subsidies for Musk’s companies stand out both for the amount, relative to the size of the companies, and for their dependence on them. And his business is shaky. Competition could also eat into Tesla’s public support. If major automakers build more zero-emission cars, they won’t have to buy as many government-awarded environmental credits from Tesla. Since the bulk of the auto sales market is used autos; current 4 cylinders that sell for half to 1/3rd the price. Electric cars degrade overtime, engines can be rebuilt…..batteries are not a products you wanna buy used. On a concert-like stage, backed by pulsating music, Musk declared that the batteries would someday render the world’s energy grid obsolete. Bill gates debunked the idea pointing out that all the batteries in the world if linked together would power the worlds energy needs….for 10 minutes.
Hyperloop perfect for spendthrift California
http://www.maddogslair.com/blog/hyperloop-perfect-for-spendthrift-california
The cost of the Hyperloop has magically ballooned from $7.5 billion for a San Francisco to LA link to $75 billion mirroring the California high speed rail boondoggle, which went from $10 billion to $100 billion for the same route, but has since been reduced to various figures but choosing $60 billion the rail speed will be nowhere near “high speed” more like moderately fast.
The Antiplanner ends: “Which brings us back to the Antiplanner’s law of infrastructure, as mentioned yesterday: In an area that already has transportation infrastructure, any transportation technology that requires new infrastructure is doomed to fail because it will be unable to compete against technologies using existing infrastructure.”
I would make the caveat that new infrastructure can work, even more expensive infrastructure but only if it reduced travel time, makes travel safer, and decreases travel costs to the consumer. So, paving roads was new technology superior to gravel, but much more costly, but in the long run it proved to be low cost, and it greatly speeded travel, and made it safer.
California is a spendthrift drunk on absurd progressive policies, good luck Californians, you are gonna need it.
Mark Sherman
Thanks again Randal for all of your hard work.
If the US had obeyed this law it never would have built the Erie Canal, the Transcontinental Railroad, or the Interstate Highway System. But I guess that’s just fine if you’re an anarcho-capitalist.
In the Antiplanner’s law of infrastructure “new” is ambiguous. New as “recently built” is not the same new as “different.” The Erie Canal competing quit successfully against horse drawn wagons on primitive roads because it did the same job much more cost effectively. Ripping up a perfectly good street to build a brand new trolly system is Randal’s new.
Ohai,
Note that I said, “in an area that already has infrastructure.” The Erie Canal and Transcontinental Railroad were built in areas that had no infrastructure. The Interstate Highway System is an exception, but it worked because it was backwards compatible with existing infrastructure.
Ohai;
“any transportation technology that requires new infrastructure is doomed to fail because it will be unable to compete against technologies using existing infrastructure”
If the US had obeyed this law it never would have built the Erie Canal, the Transcontinental Railroad, or the Interstate Highway System. But I guess that’s just fine if you’re an anarcho-capitalist.
THWM; Indeed, you also have to consider that the USA has had 100,000+ miles of rail line stolen since WWI too. Along with that roads are not expected to be profitable to survive. :$
I thought retards agreed not to post here any more.
Being pro-fetus, isn’t being pro-life. Where’s the money going to come from? Humans are not sea turtles.
Frank what you push is indoctrination, not education. :$
The Anti-Planner’s Law of Infrastructure reminds me of the internet meme that gets spread around from time to time about how the size of the Space Shuttle is limited by the size of a horse’s rear in the Roman Empire because that led to the size of roads, which led to the size of railroad gauges, which led to the size of rail cars and bridges, which limits how big items can be shipped around modern society.
Snopes says the story is somewhat true but not the direct linkage. Anyway, it makes the point.
http://www.snopes.com/history/american/gauge.asp
Another great example is how the entire global economy was transformed and improved by the “invention” of standardized shipping containers. It is extremely low tech, but fit into all the different transportation systems so well that shipping something across the world is now extremely cheap.
See The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger
https://www.amazon.com/Box-Shipping-Container-Smaller-Economy/dp/0691136408
”
If the US had obeyed this law it never would have built the Erie Canal, the Transcontinental Railroad, or the Interstate Highway System. But I guess that’s just fine if you’re an anarcho-capitalist.”
~Ohai
Not having government do something doesn’t mean there’s a lack of order. The transcontinental Raiilroad as a railroad to nowhere. It was used to siphon government money into private hands via Credit Mobilier and other things that were even scandalous by the standards of the day. It wasn’t the first transcontinental route because no one made sure there was a bridge at Council Bluffs / Omaha. And others demonstrated they could build the same on their own.
The Erie Canal was neat. But we don’t know that private groups wouldn’t have done it. Regardless wiithin 2 decades it wasn’t needed, railroads were doing a better job. And the legacy of the Erie canal begat such modern wastes as the Tennessee–Tombigbee Waterway.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/23/business/economy/desperately-plugging-holes-in-an-87-year-old-dam.html?ref=business&_r=3
No. 52 and No. 53 have been waiting to be blown up since 1998, when a new mega-dam near Olmsted, Ill., was supposed to be finished. Authorized in 1988, the project is now wildly over budget and decades behind schedule. What was supposed to cost $775 million and be finished in 1998 will now most likely cost $2.9 billion and be operational in October 2018 at the earliest.
Hi Randall,
Bruce Upbin from Hyperloop One here. Just to clarify a few things. Our cost estimates have never gone up ten-fold, and we’ve done a lot of preliminary engineering. We’ve never benchmarked our costs against Elon Musk’s original white paper, and we never swapped data with the team that did his analysis so we’re not sure exactly what went into his numbers. Nor have we ever costed out the SF to LA route that Musk was targeting. We do our own cost analysis on a per mile basis and have continued to update those estimates as we have learned more about engineering and route requirements. All we’ve ever said and what we still contend is that our capital costs on an apples-to-apples basis (excluding major civil engineering costs such as bridges, trestles, tunnels and stations that both modes share) should be roughly 60% that of HSR.
Also, buying power off the grid doesn’t necessarily increase our operating costs over dedicated solar panels. Not sure how you conclude that.
Also, we’ve always been looking at both freight and passenger use cases.
Nor will traveling in Hyperloop necessarily be claustrophobic or feel that way. Not sure how you conclude that.