The R&D can't happen in government, but in some ways that's better - government projects are slower than this needs to be. What we need is for someone(s?) with deep pockets to bank-roll prototypes &c.
Are you guys serious? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maglev#Operational_systems_ser...
Linimo, Shanghai, Daejon, and then all the test tracks, e.g. the transrapid in germany... Maglev is reality now. It simply happened to be built in China, Japan and South Korea rather than in the US.
It's got three short (1 km, 9 km, 30 km) deployments around 40 years after work first started. Are you saying that's the kind of deployment record Musk would like to see for his wundertechnology?
The parent was me. I like maglev but it's hard to deny that as a mainstream transportation method it was completely trounced for the first 30 years of its existence by more traditional methods.
If California ditches its HSR plans for hyperloop today and ends up with a 700 km/h line running in 30 years' time, busiest lines in Japan and China will have been upgraded to maglev or another 500+ km/h technology and they would have had 300+ km/h technology for the interim 30 years. Meanwhile California would have had what, driverless car trains on freeways going 200 km/h 5 years from now?
No, indeed I haven't. I take it you will consider a 30 km line built 40 years after the idea was first conceptualized to be a success for Musk's technology as well? Should do a lot to relieve the I-5, certainly!
Frankly that would be a hell of a lot better than the result I'm expecting, yes. Maglev is real, working technology - delivery may have taken longer than you thought it should, but it's far more than "a neat idea on paper". Hyperloop is nowhere near that.
So we're all rooting for hyperloop to have test tracks in 2015, demo tracks in 2020, very limited real-life deployment in 2040, and sure to become inter-city mainstream reality sometime later? Some think we'll be on Mars by then ;)
If it's technologically possible, economically profitable, and people want it, then. Flying cars have difficulties this doesn't (seem to) on all three counts.
