Musk never had any intention of building the Hyperloop. He only needed it to help kill or substantially delay the high-speed rail project and the alternate vision of sustainable collective transportation it offered. It threatened his interests as an automaker and his elite vision of “individualized” mobility that simply worked better for him.
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In the time since California started talking about high-speed rail and Elon Musk interjected with his fantasy to help sidetrack it, China moved ahead and built a network consisting of 42,000 kilometres (26,000 miles) of track. Europe is continuing to expand its own network, and Japan is building a maglev line that will run at speeds of over 500 km/h (310 mph). The first segment from Tokyo to Nagoya could open by 2027. Not to be outdone, China is working on a maglev of its own to beat its Japanese rivals.
While the Hyperloop deception spread far and wide, nowhere was it stronger than in the United States. As countries around the world moved forward with real transport improvements, North Americans were distracted by the fantasies of clueless, but self-confident tech moguls. They left people trapped in their cars and denied better options to get around that people in many other parts of the world — even those that are quite a bit poorer — take for granted. Now all they can do is shovel money at automakers to try to power cars with batteries instead of internal combustion engines. They have no vision for a better, less car dependent alternative.
This just in, the obvious scam to stop California High-speed Rail was a scam
