Earlier last year, Hyperloop One, one of the few companies building ultra-fast transportation technologies announced that it will be holding three showcase events across the globe for semi-finalists of its Global Challenge to present the models and technologies they’ve developed. Thus, tomorrow, i.e February 28, is the first event, whereas other two are scheduled to happen in London and Washington DC.
The official invite from Hyperloop One, who has talked about setting up their travel technology across five routes in the country, mentions that it is working on a new mode of transportation that offers speeds three to four times faster than high-speed rail. They’re way faster and cheaper (67 percent less than the cost to deploy and operate usual railway operations) because it is 100 percent electric and has a smaller footprint.
But, at this event, the U.S-based hyperloop company doesn’t only plan to show off proposals of the semi-finalists (five of which are Indian) but is also looking forward to a discussion on “the need for transformative transportation” with some esteemed guests in tow. It’ll be graced by the presence of Suresh Prabhu, Minister of Indian Railways and Amitabh Kant, CEO of NITI Aayog will be the keynote speaker at this event. They both will discuss their stance on hyperloop technology and the possibilities of setting up the same in India.
Further, the event will be incomplete without the presence of our hosts – the Hyperloop One executives organizing the event to discuss the rumored plans to set up a route in the country. Shervin Pishevar, Executive Chairman and Co-founder of Hyperloop One will introduce the vision – the driving force behind their plans to commercialize hyperloop transportation. He’ll be accompanied by Rob Lloyd, Global CEO and Board member of Hyperloop One, who’ll carry forward the proceedings and host the event.
Hyperloop, for those unaware, is a futuristic concept of passenger and freight transportation using pod-like vehicles that propel through near vacuum tubes at speeds even more than airlines. This concept of transportation was brought to the frontlines by none-other-than the legendary innovator Elon Musk, who decided to publish a rough version of the proposal describing the technology on SpaceX’s website. It included pods that could gradually accelerate to speeds of up to 760 miles per hour (approx 1220 km per hour) during the journey.
Thus, it’ll be highly interesting to see what Hyperloop One has in store for us. The team might actually take this opportunity to shed light on some concrete plans for setting up their operations (maybe a research center) or one of the many routes (Mumbai to Delhi) in India. The anticipation has got us pumped, thus, join us as we uncover the details of this event live from The Taj Mahal Hotel in New Delhi at 2:15 PM IST.
