Elon Musk’s plans for magnetically-levitated pods are back in the news after South Korea signed an agreement to develop a full-scale Hyperloop testbed, with the intention of ultimately building a system to zip across the country in 20 minutes.



Slovakia, Abu Dhabi, the Czech Republic, France, Sweden and Indonesia are also interested in building their own Hyperloops.

Musk claims Hyperloop pods will be faster than trains, safer than cars and much less damaging to the environment than aircraft. But is building an entirely new “fifth mode” of transport (after planes, trains, cars and boats), complete with its own unique infrastructure, the most sustainable solution to our transportation problems?

“Musk always talks about how to change the world’s energy systems as much as its transportation systems,” said Bent Flyvbjerg, an economist specialising in mega-projects at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School. “The Hyperloop fits in well in that respect, shifting transport away from carbon to renewables.”

Although Hyperloop is still almost entirely theoretical, apart from a few small-scale experiments, academics have been crunching the numbers since Musk first proposed it in 2013, when he offered the technology free for anyone to use.

Faster, cheaper, cleaner

Earlier this year, scientists at Nasa’s Glenn Research Centre in Ohio examined the Hyperloop concept from a technical and cost perspective. They concluded that “estimates of energy consumption, passenger throughput, and mission analyses all support Hyperloop as a faster and cheaper alternative to short-haul flights [of 250 to 500 miles].”

Hyperloop’s benefits really kick in, though, when you consider its environmental benefits. A feasibility analysis by the US Department of Transportation (DOT) estimates that Hyperloop routes could be up to six times more energy efficient than air travel on short routes, and over three times faster than the world’s fastest high-speed rail system.

The high-pods would also be more eco-friendly than road vehicles, according to researchers at the Helmut Schmidt University in Hamburg. Last year, they calculated the effects on road traffic of building a 300km Hyperloop in northern Germany dedicated to freight. They quantified the impact of removing thousands of trucks from the road, including reduced air and noise pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, congestion and road accidents.



Even though a Hyperloop in cloudy Germany could not run solely on solar power, it could still avoid emitting up to 140,000 tons of carbon dioxide each year, according to the study, as well as up to 0.2% of Germany’s entire production of air pollutants like methane, nitrous oxides and dust. Overall, the Hyperloop could produce up to €900m (£805m) of value in reduced pollution, accidents and congestion each year – equal to a third of its estimated €2.7bn initial investment.

Too much hype?

However, others think that Musk’s estimates for building a Hyperloop system are, like his confidence in a “verbal approval” for a route between New York City and Washington DC, hopelessly naive.

Musk put a price-tag of about $17m per mile on a Hyperloop in California. But when Nicolas McLean, an engineer at the University of Queensland, analysed the cost of building a similar Hyperloop along the eastern coast of Australia he concluded, “the cost of the overall system was roughly 10 times larger than Musk’s initial prediction … which relied on undeveloped or immature technology”.

A feasibility analysis by DOT last year was similarly sceptical: “Cost estimates for a land-based Hyperloop system may appear lower than other modes, but as the technology is still conceptual and in very initial testing, there is uncertainty in both the underlying infrastructure needed to operate a system and the cost to construct it.”

This may be ignoring the Musk factor, thinks Flyvbjerg: “We know that Musk is very cost conscious, and he has already proven himself capable of getting good engineers to work for him.” Flyvbjerg thinks that Musk could reduce costs by locating Hyperloop stations beneath airports, and by improving tunnelling technologies.

Musk recently launched The Boring Company, a firm that aims to reduce the cost and increase the speed of building tunnels by a factor of 10. “Tunnel boring machines themselves are only a few decades old, and are still very bespoke, slow and expensive,” says Flyvbjerg. “Musk needs to demonstrate that there is another way of doing things that is fast, cheap and modular.”

None of these words is synonymous with public transportation projects, which often take decades and billions of taxpayer dollars to realise. “Nobody has been able to deliver this kind of infrastructure in a way where it’s profitable, so subsidies have always been needed,” says Flyvbjerg.

That could play to Musk’s strengths. In 2015, the LA Times calculated that Musk’s rocket, electric car and solar power companies had benefited from nearly $5bn (£3.8bn) in government funding, in the form of grants, tax breaks, discounted loans, rebates and environmental credits.

“I wouldn’t bet my money on being able to make something like the Hyperloop financially viable,” says Flyvbjerg. “But that’s OK. We subsidise all sorts of other infrastructure so why not the Hyperloop, if we think there’s an environmental or business case for it?”