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The Line, the 170 km long and 500 meter high city project in the Saudi desert, could be equipped with a Hyperloop. But the technology, which was supposed to revolutionize high-speed transport, has still been in the testing phase for more than 10 years.
The Line, the dystopian city in the desert currently under construction in Saudi Arabia, is already a fantastical project, which seems unrealizable. But new information further adds doubts about the feasibility of the project: the addition of a Hyperloop, an increasingly controversial technology.
It was in a discreet message on X (formerly Twitter) that The Line teams mentioned the fact that a Hyperloop could be built in the future city. While Neom, the vast Saudi land development project to which The Line is linked, had just shared new photos of the work, an Internet user commented on the publication and asked what the means of transport would be within the city.
Neom’s response was quick. “ Mobility will first be provided by high-speed trains. As our population grows, we will face more transportation demands, and one option could be cutting-edge technology like the Hyperloop. »
An unrealizable project for a totally dystopian city
Imagined by Elon Musk in 2013, Hyperloops were presented as a revolution in public transport. It is a kind of capsule, circulating in low pressure tubes with propulsion by magnetic field, which would make it possible to reach a speed of 1200 km/h. The idea was received with great enthusiasm, and many companies embarked on the adventure, with the aim of proving the feasibility of the idea.
But more than 10 years later, almost no trials have been successful, and many companies have given up. Although other tests are still underway, notably in Italy and China, none have ever reached the speed of 1000 km/h announced by Elon Musk – the Chinese Hyperloop, developed by the company Casic, has only exceeded 600 km/h during a test carried out in February 2024.
The fact that Neom wants to have a Hyperloop may seem far-fetched. On the one hand, nothing says that the Hyperloops tests will ever be conclusive. On the other hand, many obstacles could prevent the construction of such a project: the infrastructure that must be built for a Hyperloop to operate is imposing, and requires significant investments. In Canada, a Hyperloop project which was to connect the cities of Edmonton and Calgary, 300 km apart, was estimated at $18 billion, BFMTV recalls, at $60 million per kilometer of track built.
Finally, there are health issues to consider: speeding over 1000 km/h could be harmful to the body. Thus, certain Hyperloops projects, such as Hyperloop One, were designed to transport goods, and not people. This is still a problem that The Line should solve — and the city already faces many challenges.
Construction of the city itself has fallen behind schedule, Bloomberg learned in April, and it will not be fully completed by 2030, as initially announced. Instead of being 170 km long, the city will only be 2.4 km long on this date, or barely more than 1% of the total length. Population expectations have also fallen: instead of the expected 9 million inhabitants, authorities now indicate that only 300,000 people will live within The Line.
This debacle comes as Saudi Arabia is struggling to finance the Neom project, estimated at $1.5 trillion. Until now, it was the country’s sovereign wealth fund that was responsible for paying the bills, but the kingdom recently began looking for other sources of financing. Saudi Arabia requested several bank loans, and even tried, in vain, to attract Chinese investors.
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