Dec 22, 2023 12:00:00

'Hyperloop One' aiming for a super high-speed transportation system with a speed of 1200 km / h will end its business due to sale of all assets and layoff of employees

``Hyperloop One'' aimed to commercialize the ``Hyperloop'' open source project proposed by businessman Elon Musk, which aims to run a vehicle carrying people and cargo at 1200 km per hour inside a tube. It has been revealed that the company is planning to sell all its assets and lay off its remaining employees at the end of 2023.

Hyperloop One to Shut Down After Raising Millions to Reinvent Transit - Bloomberg

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-12-21/hyperloop-one-to-shut-down-after-raising-millions-to-reinvent-transit

The hyperloop is dead for real this time - The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/21/24011448/hyperloop-one-shut-down-layoff-closing-elon-musk

Hyperloop One had more than 200 employees as of early 2022, but most have already been laid off and the company is based in Los Angeles, an anonymous source familiar with the matter told the news site Bloomberg. The office was also closed. The company's assets, such as test courses and equipment, are also being sold, and the employment relationship of the remaining employees to supervise the sale process will be terminated on December 31, 2023. .

The majority of Hyperloop One's shares have been held by a Dubai-based company called DP World since 2016, and the intellectual property rights held by Hyperloop One will be transferred to DP World.

In addition, Hyperloop One will merge with a paper company in early 2023, and the shares will be worthless, and Hyperloop One will be owned only by the shareholders of that paper company.

The Hyperloop concept was proposed by Elon Musk, who has led successful ventures such as Tesla and SpaceX, and when he made the idea open source and called for active participation, multiple companies and student groups participated. . One of those camps was Hyperloop One (formerly Hyperloop Technologies).

Hyperloop One was tested outdoors in the desert near Las Vegas in 2016.

Ultra-high-speed moving object 'Hyperloop' with a speed of 1200 km / h succeeds in the first outdoor driving test, and the actual driving movie is also released - GIGAZINE

In 2017, it successfully ran at a speed of 310km/h on a test course.

'Hyperloop One', one of the hyperloop development teams, succeeded in running at 310 km / h with a full-sized vehicle, and a movie was also released - GIGAZINE

There was a time when Virgin Group, a conglomerate centered on airlines, invested and became 'Virgin Hyperloop', and a concept movie was released with the aim of commercial development after 2030.

``Hyperloop'' passenger experience movie in which pods run through a vacuum tube, aiming for commercial development after 2030 - GIGAZINE

In 2020

, manned driving was also successful , but the speed was around 160km/h. After that, due to the impact of the new coronavirus pandemic, Virgin Group decided to prioritize cargo and withdrew from the Hyperloop concept, and the name was changed back to Hyperloop One. Also, during this period, most of the founders and the management team at the time resigned.

There used to be multiple competitors, and one of them, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, went so far as to release a full-sized pod, Quintero One, in 2018, but it gave up on commercialization before Hyperloop One. With the end of Hyperloop One's business, the Hyperloop concept was completely defeated.

In addition, proponent Elon Musk himself established ``The Boring Company'' in order to realize a system that can move at high speed in tunnels dug underground.

A movie showing how much time saving Elon Musk's ``underground tunnel'' that can run at 200 km / h saves time is released - GIGAZINE

Although we succeeded in constructing a loop line underground under the Las Vegas Convention Center, traffic jams were occurring near the end of the line, and the original Hyperloop concept was ``to eliminate the frustration of getting stuck in traffic jams in the city.'' ” concept has not been realized.

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