In November last year, the company had tested human travel for the first time, where passengers took a ride at Virgin Hyperloop’s 500-metre test site in Las Vegas. The company’s co-founder Josh Giegel and the director of the passenger experience, Sara Luchian, were among the first passengers in the world to experience the new form of transportation. Now, Virgin Hyperloop is working toward regulating and certifying its hyperloop system — aiming to achieve safety certification by 2025.

In 2018, the corporation announced that they planned to construct a 2km test track for their Hyperloop system. Since then, Zeleros have made some major developments within this area of technology. 

In February 2021, Zeleros announced that it was working with Airbus to test its electric propulsion system. This came eight months after the corporation raised seven million euros for the construction of a European hyperloop centre in Valencia where further developments could take place. The centre is planned to have a 3km test track however a start date for construction has yet to be released (Van Den Bogaard, 2021).

In July 2021, Zeleros announced that it had brought on three new business investment partners: infrastructure company Acciona, energy specialist EIT InnoEnergy and train builder CAF. The aim of the investment is to develop their transport system, which aims to travel at a speed of 1,000 km per hour with zero direct emissions. Each of the three investors brings unique industry insight and key ideas to the project.

Acciona brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in the construction of high-speed transport lines. They are currently building the longest railway tunnel in Nordic countries as part of the Follo Line high-speed railway project (Smart Cities World, 2021).

EIT InnoEnergy is the leading company for sustainable energy and offers the project superior technology and skills that are required to support Europe’s decarbonisation goals.

David Pistoni, CEO and Co-founder of Zeleros was recently quoted as saying: “For Zeleros it is an honour to have industrial partners at the level of Acciona, CAF and EIT InnoEnergy to make this ambitious project a reality, with which we want to expand the limits of mobility as we know it, making it faster and more sustainable. We continue to make steady progress to achieve this” (Auto Futures, 2021).

There are many known challenges around Hyperloop technology that are not unique to Zeleros. For example, Leonard (2021) reported that the balance between passenger safety and keeping access affordable is a constant battle for the industry. In addition to this, they noted that the regulatory framework for Hyperloop is not yet available. This is especially important in Europe where all modes of transport are submitted to precise legalisation. CEO of Zeleros, David Pistoni made a comment on this in a 2020 interview with Railway Technology. When asked what challenges Zeleros has encountered so far, Pistoni commented “I would say one of the main challenges is the legal framework because, in order to go further, interoperability is key. As Europe, we need to make sure that we have this interoperability between countries. We are now cooperating with different European companies to finance a standard for hyperloop in Europe. So one of the big challenges will be to coordinate and join forces, at least in the European framework and regulations. On the technical side, one of the biggest challenges is the optimal integration of all the technologies” (Macola, 2020).

Prior to researching Zeleros for this contribution, I had not yet heard of the company. However, I do think that they are one to watch within this area of technology as they have made significant investments and developments in the five years of their existence. 

References

Auto Futures. (2021, July 22). Spanish Hyperloop Developer Zeleros Receives Design And Engineering Support From New Backers. Auto Futures. Retrieved September 12, 2021, from https://www.autofutures.tv/2021/07/22/spanish-hyperloop-developer-zeleros-receives-design-and-engineering-support-from-new-backers/

Leonard. (2021, May 31). Emerging Trends: Hyperloop and the challenges of ultra high speed terrestrial transportation. Leonard. Retrieved September 12, 2021, from https://leonard.vinci.com/en/emerging-trends-hyperloop-ultra-high-speed-terrestrial-transportation/

Macola, I. G. (2020, June 9). Q&A: the future of hyperloop with Zeleros. Railway Technology. Retrieved September 12, 2021, from https://www.railway-technology.com/features/qa-the-future-of-hyperloop-with-zeleros/

Smart Cities World. (2021, July 22). Zeleros builds ecosystem to accelerate hyperloop in Europe. Smart Cities World. Retrieved September 12, 2021, from https://www.smartcitiesworld.net/news/news/zeleros-builds-ecosystem-to-accelerate-hyperloop-in-europe-6653

Van Den Bogaard, P. (2021, July 23). CAF to design hyperloop capsule for Spanish Zeleros. RailTech. Retrieved September 12, 2021, from https://www.railtech.com/rolling-stock/2021/07/23/caf-to-design-hyperloop-capsule-for-spanish-zeleros/?gdpr=accept

Development business model ET3 operates as a global alliance.  Individuals and companies join the alliance to access the IP and contribute to its development, on the basis that ET3 will share in the royalties of any resulting profitable projects.  ET3 purports to now have 400 experts and companies in 25 countries as alliance members.

Progress While ET3 itself has yet to build a test track, ET3 licensee Southwest Jiaotong University built the first vactrain test track in China to test this technology.  Southwest Jiaotong University applied high temperature superconductive magnetic levitation to the ET3 system - it costs less to run than other maglev systems and does not rely on motion, external or internal power or electronic control to maintain stable levitation.

ET3 plans to build a 4.8km track proof of concept in the US, for which US$20M investment is sought.  The cost would be defrayed through commercialisation of the test track - eg through subsequent use as an entertainment ride or in the film industry.  Oster has met with others in the industry, including SpaceX’s Elon Musk.  Development announcements have been imminent - perhaps delayed due to Covid-19 in early 2020.

Comment Oster maintains that all of the technology required is available now; the remaining requirement is for governments to commit to a significant infrastructure programme over funding existing highway and rail infrastructure.  ET3 certainly sets out a good case for hyperloop technology.  The benefits of cost, speed and convenience, environmental impact and safety are compelling.  It’s clear that network scale needs to be reached in order to see pricing that makes the transport accessible to everyday commuters.  A key challenge for competing companies developing hyperloop technologies will therefore be to win scale - through adoption/expansion and interoperability.

References

Evacuated tube transport technologies (ET3): a maximum value global transportation network for passengers and cargo

Daryl OSTER, Masayuki KUMADA, Yaoping ZHANG,

Hardt Global Mobility was founded in 2016 in the Netherlands. 

Hardt built a testing facility in 2019 in Delft and is currently in the design stage for the establishment of a Eurpoean Hyperloop Centre which will bring together those working to make hyperloop technology available for use in Europe. This centre is planned to open in 2022 in Groningen – which is already home to a smart mobility development centre. This type of co-location of innovative businesses can see innovation thrive, as seen in places like Silicon Valley. 

Its partners and investors include large transportation companies in Europe such as Deutsche Bahn. 

Reference: 

https://hardt.global/ 

Marshall, A. (2019). Elon Musk’s Boring Company Inches Closer to Making Hyperloop a Reality. WIRED. Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musks-boring-company-takes-small-step-toward-reality/

Musk, E. (2013). Hyperloop Alpha. The Boring Company. Retrieved from https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/blog_images/hyperloop-alpha.pdf

The Boring Company. (2021). Loop today Hyperloop Tomorrow. Retrieved From https://www.boringcompany.com/hyperloop

As mentioned by Natasha, Elon Musk was the one to turn the world’s attention back to tubular transport technology. His 2013 Alpha Hyperloop white paper claimed Hyperloop would provide high speed transport, low cost and safer than traditional transport. His company SpaceX is a privately owned American aerospace and space exploration manufacturer. It doesn’t develop hyperloop solutions but through the organising and sponsorship of the annual Hyperloop Pod competition, that university students enter, the company is helping propel this technology forward and garnering interest worldwide (https://youtu.be/VYStvnepo40). The Boring Company, also founded by Elon Musk, focusses more on the infrastructure and tunnel technology required to make hyperloop routes possible. The company proposes it can decrease the cost of creating such tunnels which helps with the feasibility of this new technology being adopted by urban centres in the not to near future.

The following video uses VR tech to see what travelling in a hyperloop pod is like:

In the first Hyperloop competition, 18 teams took part in 2017. TUM (Technische Universität München), MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and the Dutch Delft University of Technology emerged as the front runners. The goal is to build a system that can carry freight and passengers in aerodynamic carriages in a tube in near-vacuum conditions running close to the speed of sound. It will allow the 569km between Los Angeles and San Francisco to be covered in 30 minutes. 

In Summer 2020, the university announced that TUM Hyperloop would transit its student Hyperloop team into a university-backed research group. Their next challenge is to use the materials and skills they gained from the competition to develop (2.5 meters in diameter, meters in length). 

The team began to use 10 of its 40 students each year to develop small research prototypes to test other aspects of Hyperloop design. 

At the beginning of 2020, TUM and the university's upper management took its Hyperloop concept to the next level, with a full-scale pod demonstrator and short, 24-meter full-scale track. Due to the pandemic, some progress has been delayed. However, they expect to present a full-scale prototype by the end of 2021. 

 TUM Hyperloop has been researching the advantages and disadvantages of the systems they have already designed or tried. 

They emphasize that the designs will converge into a design that will become standard once all of the pros and cons are teased out. 


https://www.compositesworld.com/articles/tu-munich-gears-up-for-full-scale-hyperloop-demonstrator

The Swiss company is in a good position to take advantage of the fact that the organisation and the Swiss university have repeatedly placed in competitions and are ahead of the curve in terms of research into Hyperloop technology. However, the Swiss university is still in the research and testing phase for Hyperloop technology, so it will be 20 or even 40 years before it is developed.

Yes. Firstly, the capital cost of building a Hyperloop is very much linked to the local geographical and environmental conditions, and in Switzerland the Hyperloop would require expensive and extensive tunnel construction, which adds significantly to the construction costs. The need to minimise the existence of sharp turning situations while ensuring ride comfort, yet most European motorways have curves, also adds to some extent to the cost of land design and acquisition. A second major risk is that the investment may not end up carrying more commercial value at the present time or even long into the future if the remaining technical barriers to vacuum transport cannot be resolved or if advances in other transport mode technologies overtake the super high-speed rail.

The European Metro and Swiss University have taken The leading position, but his research has not entered The final achievement stage, and it still needs 20-40 years of research to be put into The market.

 

The construction cost is higher than ordinary bullet trains.Hyperloop has high technological and environmental requirements.This requires continuous efforts of researchers to break down technical barriers.

Hyperloop Technology's greatest contribution is the speed at which humans can move products.This is a green supply chain model with huge development potential, which is conducive to alleviating traffic jams and other problems. It will not cause pollution to the environment, and is an environmentally friendly mode of transportation. At the same time, it can also reduce transportation costs.

https://articles.cyzerg.com/innovative-logistics-technology-trends-the-hyperloop