5 Companies That Could Make Musk’s Hyperloop Happen

Source: TeslaMotors.com/blog/hyperloop

SolarCity

Musk’s Tesla announced the Hyperloop project, but it’s his

SolarCity that can power it

SolarCity

Musk claims that “placing solar panels on top of the tube” will permit

Hyperloop to

“generate far in excess of the energy needed to operate”

SolarCity

Placing solar panels on top of things is basically SolarCity’s business plan

SolarCity

SolarCity can take any extra solar power generated from the panels, and sell it to

defray operating costs

SolarCity

And when you get right down to it, Hyperloop is Musk’s idea

So who better to help finance it?

He should have some skin in the game

SolarCity

And after tripling SolarCity’s market cap in less than a year, with a net worth of

$7 billion…

Musk has the money to make this happen

Tutor Perini

Elon Musk has criticized California’s plan to build a high-speed rail system,

calling it a

“bullet train that is both one of the most expensive per mile and one of the slowest in the world”

Tutor Perini

Tutor Perini won a $985 million contract to design and build the first leg of this

new high-speed rail project

It’s familiar with the California regulatory landscape already, and with the issues with

building mass transit in this state

Tutor Perini

Also, this being California, we can’t forget the elephant in the room...

EarthquakesBut here, too, Tutor Perini

has relevant experience

Tutor Perini

Last year, it won the contract to repair the Washington Monument after it was

damaged by a rare East Coast earthquake

This experience will help Tutor Perini design a Hyperloop that not only might resist earthquake damage, but one

that will be easier to repair after an earthquake inevitably strikes

BoeingMusk says he can build a 400-mile Hyperloop connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles

for $6 billion. As the nation’s biggest integrated government / commercial contractor, Boeing has the financial heft to carry out this project

Boeing

Boeing is more than just airplanes – it’s construction projects, too

Boeing

Boeing built a “virtual fence” along the Mexican border for Homeland Security. The project was a $1 billion bust, true ...

but that wasn’t entirely Boeing’s fault

If nothing else, the border fence gave Boeing experience building miles-long projects – experience

few other contractors possess

BAE Systems

Musk says Hyperloop’s travel capsules will be “accelerated via a magnetic linear accelerator affixed at various

stations”

This sounds an awful lot like how the U.S. Navy’s new “rail guns” accelerate and fire “bullets”

BAE Systems

In July, the U.S. Navy gave BAE a $34.5 million contract to build it a rail gun

capable of accelerating projectiles to

Mach 6Sound familiar?

BAE Systems

That’s more than six times the speed at which Musk says he needs his Hyperloop capsules

to travel

Hence ... BAE is 6x capable to satisfy Hyperloop’s need for speed

Walt Disney

Discussing Hyperloop, Musk has compared the experience to

“getting a ride on Space Mountain at Disneyland.“

Walt Disney

And if that’s true then ...

why not bring Disney itself in to make the experience complete?

Walt Disney

Seriously. Who knows more about rollercoaster rides than –

the biggest amusement park operator on the planet?

Walt Disney

And what Is Hyperloop, really, but a supersized rollercoaster ...

without all the rolls?

Walt Disney

Rails, “pods,” electric propulsion –

this all sounds like a Disney ride to me, and it should all be old hat for Disney

Walt Disney

UCLA physics professsor Martin Simon, who’s on record calling Musk’s Hyperloop

idea “feasible” –

and who himself compared the plan to “acceleration methods ... used at amusement parks to get a roller

coaster going” thinks

“it would be cool if they had transparent tubes”

Heck, yeah!

Walt Disney

Musk puts the number of travelers between San Francisco and LA at “6 million” per year.

If each of them used Hyperloop exclusively, you’d need to collect $1,000 in tolls from them to pay for it – which could

take some time.

Walt Disney

Make Hyperloop transparent, though, and it becomes a tourist attraction – a sightseeing

tour –

and paying tourists help to defray the cost of the project even faster.