Elon Musk's proposal for a hi-tech transport system, the Hyperloop, may soon arrive in Asia. The South Korean government is planning to keep things running in four years time.
The Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, one of the companies aspiring to pursue the idea of Tesla founder, Elon Musk, has managed to close its first commercial deal. The company is said to be preparing to build a near-supersonic train connecting Seoul to a city about 200 miles away, according to Bloomberg.
As an overview, the Hyperloop technology would utilize magnetic levitation in low-pressure tubes. Such mechanism will transport people, materials, and other good at speed beyond the usual train system.
Hyperloop Transportation Technologies was founded back in 2013 in Los Angeles. It was able to raise funding up to 30 million from partner firms like Edgewater Partners.
This report of a South Korean Hyperloop project is indeed a good score for HTT. For apart from the said company, another known rival, the Hyperloop One, is also making its own progress.
In comparison with other projects, the South Korean tech project is hoping to be cleared of potential hurdles. The HTT is expecting that hurdle shouldn't be much trouble for the government of South Korea.
"We are ready to build. The biggest showstopper is regulation. You need the support of these governments," Wired quoted CEO Dirk Ahlborn as saying.
The challenge for the company and other developers of the project is simply not to demonstrate a working Hyperloop system. The company is also expected to have a cost-effective and profitable project.
However, there is still no telling when the South Korean Hyperloop project will start and even finish. As of the current writing, things are being prepared for initial steps to be performed. However, the challenge still remains to keep the system running in four years time.
Watch here below the concept of the Hyperloop system by proposed by Elon Musk: