‘India unlikely to go for hyperloop trains’
This technology is at a ‘very low level’ of maturity and may not be economically viable, says V K Saraswat, NITI Aayog Member
image for illustrative purpose
New Delhi India is unlikely to go in for hyperloop technology for ultra high-speed trains in the near future as the technology is at a ‘very low level’ of maturity and may not be economically viable at the current juncture, NITI Aayog Member V K Saraswat said on Sunday. Saraswat, who is heading a committee to explore the technological and commercial viability of the Virgin Hyperloop technology, further said some foreign companies have shown interest to bring the technology in India. “Hyperloop technology as far as we are concerned, we found that the offer which came from foreign countries are not very viable options. They are at a very low level of maturity of technology,” he siad in an interview.
Hyperloop is a high-speed train, running in vacuum in a tube. The technology is proposed by Elon Musk, who is behind e lectric car company Tesla and commercial space transport company SpaceX. “So we have not given much importance to that and as on today, it is only a study programme. I don’t expect hyperloop to enter into our transportation framework in the near future,” he said. The Virgin Hyperloop test run was conducted on November 9, 2020, on a 500-metre track in Las Vegas in the US with a pod, as the hyperloop vehicles are called, travelling with passengers, including an Indian, inside an enclosed tube at more than 161 km/hr.
According to Saraswat, the offers which came are at a very low level of maturity and “we cannot make investment on that kind of a technology.” Virgin Hyperloop is among a handful of companies which are trying to build such a system for passenger travel. Maharashtra has deemed hyperloop a public infrastructure exercise and approved the Virgin Hyperloop-DP World Consortium as the original project proponent for the Mumbai-Pune hyperloop project. Replying to a question on India’s reliance on lithium imports from China, Saraswat said as on today, production of lithium ion battery in India is very low, so the dependence is on the import of batteries from China and other sources.
