Build it, bring it

“You can’t travel the world on a PowerPoint Deck”, says Nick Earle, SVP, Hyperloop One, while announcing his company’s plans for India.

- Prasid Banerjee

We just talked about connecting a billion people, but the Hyperloop can take only about 28 people at a time, right? What’s the possibility of scaling the number of passengers?

Nick: To be clear, the pod doesn’t take just 28 people at a time. The pods have a variable length and it’s an autonomous vehicle. They move, let’s say about 20 seconds apart. So, the pod could take maybe 60 people at a time. But to your point, it’s not 6,000 people. However, 60 people every 20 seconds is still quite a few people.

Now, if you have a network of Hyperloops, you can change the lives of a billion people. If we had a fibre access between here and the building next to us, it wouldn’t change Delhi. However, when the Internet let you reach out to London or anywhere else, it changed people’s lives.

In terms of ridership, we’re looking at anywhere from low-end 6,000 passengers per hour to a high-end 20-25,000 per hour. If we need more, you just build another pipe.