High-speed transportation company Hyperloop One is shutting down, here’s why

Once considered to be the future of transportation, Hyperloop One is packing its bags. According to a report, the high-speed freight transportation company will shut down by the end of this year.

Citing people familiar with the matter, a report by Bloomberg says that Hyperloop One has failed to win any contract to build a working hyperloop. The Los-Angeles-based firm completed the world's first passenger ride on a super high-speed levitating pod system in 2020.

It will reportedly sell off its remaining assets and terminate the employment for its remaining workers on December 31 this year.

Hyperloop One built a small test track near Las Vegas to develop its transportation technology, and for a time took the name Virgin Hyperloop One after British billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin invested.

Virgin removed its branding after the startup decided last year to focus on cargo rather than people. Hyperloop One was founded in 2014 and was backed by United Arab Emirates shipping company DP World apart from Branson.

What is hyperloop
In a hyperloop system, a pod transports people at very high-speeds and the technology uses magnetic levitation to allow near-silent travel. A trip between New York and Washington was claimed to take just 30 minutes - twice as fast as a commercial jet flight and four times faster than a high-speed train.

Elon Musk reignited interest in the technology in 2013 by setting out how a modern hyperloop system would work. His own tunnelling enterprise, The Boring Company, is seeking to use a similar technology to transport passengers into pods through an intercity system of underground vacuum tubes known as the hyperloop.

FacebookTwitterLinkedin

end of article