Comments
Six months after the first proposal of building a modern transportation system in India gained ground, Hyperloop India has taken its first step.
Hyperloop India, which has got backing from Elon Musk, has partnered with Workbench Projects, a Bengaluru-based start-up, which will build the first pod prototype that hypothetically claims to be immune from weather conditions, collision free, travels twice the speed a plane’s speed, consumes low power and comes with energy storage for a whole day.
“We have signed the partnership with Hyperloop India for building a 4x2 metre pod,” Workbench Projects Founder and CEO Pavan Kumar told BusinessLine . Engineers from Tesla and SpaceX are working on this transportation pod, which can be used anywhere in the world.
‘OrcaPod’Hyperloop India consists of 80 students from BITS Pilani, Indian School of Business (ISB), IIM-Ahmedabad, National Institute of Design, RV College of Engineering, Xavier’s Institute of Management, amongst others. Their pod prototype ‘OrcaPod’ has been selected for the final stage of SpaceX’s Hyperloop Pod Design competition, which will be held in California. While the pod is still in the making, the design will be inspired by Orca, the whale.
Hyperlooop India along with Workbench Projects is looking to raise the funds through crowdfunding platform Ketto, to build this pod in India. The amount that they are looking to raise is around ₹75 lakh, which, according to Sibesh Kar, Team Lead and Founder, Hyperloop India, would be used to build a most frugal pod in the world.
“The average cost of building (pod) would be ₹3 crore,” he said.
So far, Hyperlooop and Workbench have managed to raise ₹30 lakh from a few corporates and both the Central and Karnataka governments have lent their support for this project.
Further, most of the materials such as high-grade aluminium or FRC will be sourced from India but the magnet, will be sourced from China.
Kar explained that the electrical components, electronics, which would include software programming will all be done locally.
Focus on pod firstWhen asked about Intellectual Property, Kar said that as it is still being built and the technology of hyperloop is itself in a nascent stage, the company wants to focus on building the pod first.
Around 80 people, across different disciplines such as engineering, economics and software programmers are collaborating to build this pod.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.