It is 420 meters long, making it the longest hyperloop in Europe. We are talking about the brand new European Hyperloop Center in Veendam. It can be found at Husa Logistics and cost 7.5 million euros to build. The option to change lanes is special: that is a first in the world of hyperloops.
Hyperloop
It also concerns you, because part of that 7.5 million euros comes from government money. It is also no small experiment: while many hyperloop projects have already been shelved, this project has a duration of at least 5 years. People are not transported there, because that is still too dangerous at the moment, in addition to being very nauseating. First we look at how well goods are holding up and whether such a hyperloop ride is worth it.
A hyperloop is not some kind of space travel: it is a kind of magnetic train like the ones in Japan, but in a tunnel. That tunnel is necessary to make everything airtight, so that the electromagnetic vehicle can zoom through the tube with ease. There is no air resistance, so nothing stops it from making good speed. That speed could increase to 1,200 kilometers per hour, but that is not possible in Veendam on that relatively short track: 100 kilometers per hour is already quite decent there.
Elon Musk
The intention is that people will eventually be transported using the hyperloop. Hyperloop is often reminiscent of Elon Musk, because he started a major project to bring hyperloop a little closer, but he eventually pulled the plug on his Hyperloop test tunnel in California. That is not very strange: we have been struggling with this futuristic technology for years. Even the richest people in the world quit their projects, what does that say?
The speed appears to be very difficult to achieve, as Virgin also found out, which could only reach 160 kilometers per hour with its hyperloop. The costs of development are enormous, but the question is also where in this extremely busy world you can make such a system for real: it is fun to test at 500 meters, but ultimately such a system will cover many kilometers. Yet there is still a lot of confidence. At least in Veendam. The director of the EHC expects that there will be as many as 10,000 kilometers of hyperloops by 2050.
