Dirk Ahlborn, CEO of
Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, wants to “make travel suck less,” and he plans to do so by putting people and cargo in tubes that will travel at speeds up to 750 miles per hour.
At “Crowdsourcing the Hyperloop,” a South by Southwest Conferences & Festivals panel held March 13, Ahlborn dispelled myths and criticisms of his company’s plans to build a new form of transportation, known as a Hyperloop, in California and other cities throughout the world.
“Why should we do this?” Ahlborn said. “One reason: traffic. Traffic is one of the biggest problems we have. Traffic takes time—time we could be productive or time we could spend with our loved ones.”
Ahlborn described the Hyperloop as “a capsule filled with people hovering inside a tube, moving really fast from point A to point B.”
A trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco takes about five hours by car, Alhborn said. With the Hyperloop that trip would take about 36 minutes.
The company is still working to figure out what its business model will be. The company may monetize the project through ticket sales, similar to a traditional bus, subway or airplane trip. Or, the Hyperloop may support itself via advertising or other means, he said.
“It’s all about the business model,” Ahlborn said. “The Hyperloop works as a local transportation system as well as an intercity transportation system. Inside the city I think we are cheaper than the subway, but it’s really about figuring out, ‘What’s your business model?’”
“Why should we do this? One reason: traffic. Traffic is one of the biggest problems we have. Traffic takes time—time we could be productive or time we could spend with our loved ones.”
—Dirk Ahlborn, CEO of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies
Ahlborn said the Hyperloop would rely on solar, kinetic, wind and geothermal energy. The project would be completely powered by renewable energy, he said.
The project has had many critics and skeptics, Ahlborn said, but it is closer to being realized than most people think. By late 2018 or early 2019 he expects the first Hyperloop to be completed in the Quay Valley between Los Angeles and San Francisco, he said.
The company has acquired right of way in California, and he said he expects construction to begin in mid-2016.
He said he expects a Hyperloop to open in Slovakia by 2020.
To bring the Hyperloop closer to reality, the company announced it would offer stock options to anyone willing to work on the concept at least 10 hours per day. The company received more than 200 applications after making that announcement, and ultimately hired 100 engineers to bring the concept closer to reality.
The company has utilized what it calls “crowdstorming,” or the idea of using multiple users’ input to design and guide creation of their product.
“We’re using a completely different model,” he said. “We’ve invented a different way of building a company.”
