If you follow us on Twitter and read our blog regularly (who doesn’t?), you’ve probably seen us post a few articles about the hyperloop. If you’re new to this story or need a refresher, the Hyperloop is essentially a super-fast transport system that relies on the power of magnetic levitation. One company, Hyperloop One, recently announced its proposed routes for cities across the globe. The hyperloop is the brainchild of Tesla founder, Elon Musk. Musk envisioned a new form a mass transit that could move people and freight across hundreds of miles not in hours, but in minutes. After meeting Musk in 2013, Shervin Pishevar was immediately fascinated by the idea of high speed transit and founded Hyperloop One. Through extensive research and tests, Hyperloop One developed a prototype, even running successful runs in the Nevada desert. As you can imagine, those of us in the magnet business are pretty excited to see this technology gain momentum. As Musk’s idea became more and more plausible, cities around the world began bidding for the chance to be included along one of these high-speed routes. While there were hundreds of entrants, it’s been whittled down to the lucky few who will receive the hyperloop. And the Winners Are… According to a press release on September 14th, The winning routes of Hyperloop One’s Global Challenge are: USA
  • Cheyenne-Denver-Pueblo
  • Chicago-Columbus-Pittsburgh
  • Dallas-Laredo-Houston
  • Miami-Orlando
  Canada
  • Toronto-Montreal
  UK
  • Edinburgh-London
  • Glasgow-Liverpool
  Mexico
  • Mexico City-Guadalajara
  India
  • Bengaluru-Chennai
  • Mumbai-­Chennai
  Why These Routes? Many tech news sites have been quick to point out how random some of these winning routes seem. For instance, Cities along America’s east and west coasts seem extremely underrepresented. There are also no routes planned for continental Europe. Why have some of these arguably more logical routes been omitted? In actuality, many of these cities did not propose routes in the first place. Despite Elon Musk speaking openly about wanting to include routes servicing New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle, none of these cities put forth a plan. Additionally, Hyperloop One sees its winning areas as good opportunities for population and industrial growth. They hope their high speed pods will help encourage this growth and breath new life into some of these regions. As exciting as this news might be, nothing is set in stone quite yet. There won’t be any groundbreaking just yet. By selecting these routes, Hyperloop One has set its sight on areas it hopes to further research and develop. All of these routes will undoubtedly require cooperation between local and federal governments as well as developers and builders. Apex Magnets is following the hyperloop saga closely. Follow us on Twitter to stay up to date on all the breaking news.