Hyperloop, A necessity or a luxury?

Do we really need a different mode of transportation? The question seems to be an enigma. Anyway, let's check what's in the pocket.

Imagine commuting daily for your job or business from one city to another, and yet having a beautiful evening with your family on the same day, Though it sounds so ambitious, it's not impossible. A transportation mode that can achieve 600 miles per hour—speed that is rival to air travel and is cost-effective too. There is no second doubt that hyperloop may challenge all the existing modes of transportation in terms of speed and luxury too, but what is the catch here? Let's find out.

At the outset, let's discuss how the hyperloop technology actually works. Hyperloop consists mainly of a tube, capsule/pod, propulsion system, and control system. The base idea of a hyperloop is a capsule that will be elevated using the concept of magnetic levitation — is also known a maglev, a technology that uses magnetic fields to levitate and propel objects — when the polarities of two magnets (Permanent magnate/Electromagnet) are the same, they repel each other, and this phenomenon is used to levitate the pod, latter by energizing the magnetic field in sequence propels the pod forward. In this whole process the air resistance should be lesser and which only can be done effectively in a vacuum chamber—sealed tube. So for this futuristic transportation system, we actually need to create a tube all around the world, and this tube should maintain the vacuum inside while the pod is on the go, and this is undoubtedly a challenging task.

If we look at other futuristic vehicles like driverless cars or flying cars, those do not require other prerequisites, and are adaptable to our existing transportation system, whereas implementing the hyperloop requires tons of materials to create a tube all around the world, which means creating a whole new infrastructure, a large amount of energy to create a vacuum, a magnetic field, and also needs to make the technology so reliable that it can perfectly operate under many different circumstances as a simple mistake can be deleterious at that supersonic speed.

To sum up whole transportation systems need to be started from zero, which can affect the world economy too. However, the constraints that are a concern for now may dissolve in the future, as there are many things we thought impossible but have proven possible, whereas many companies are doing research on hyperloop and have tested its human trials successfully. So, what's your thought on hyperloop? Do we really need a hyperloop, or we are okay with the existing mode of transportation?