Next month, 23 teams from around the world will compete in the Hyperloop Pod Competition organised by SpaceX in California, USA. The Hyperloop India team, the only one selected from India, seems to have hit a roadblock.
The team, which mostly comprises students from engineering and business colleges across the country, is struggling to raise ₹30 lakh for transporting their 'Orcapod' from Bengaluru to Hawthorne, California, and meeting the expenses on testing.
In May this year, 25 members of the team had come to Bengaluru to begin work on building the Orcapod, which that can utilise the hyperloop technology and theoretically reach speeds of up to 460 km per hour.
The Hyperloop India team with Workbench Projects co-founder Anupama Gowda (left).
The team chose to sign up with Workbench Projects, a fabrication lab based in the Ulsoor metro station, to build their prototype. Work began in earnest in June to meet the August 1 deadline for completing construction. The competition will be held on August 25-27.
While construction of the pod is expected to be completed by August 1, the team is struggling to meet the logistical costs. “We were initially told that the cost of transporting the pod would be around ₹ 3.5 lakh. Now we have been advised that this figure would be close to ₹10 lakh,” said Anupama Gowda, co-founder of Workbench Projects.
An online crowdfunding campaign has not garnered much response. Till Saturday evening, the team had raised merely ₹7.09 lakh of the target of ₹30 lakh with 297 supporters. With just five days left for the campaign to end, the team is hoping that more donors will pitch in.
Over the last one-and-half months, the project has captured the imagination of many, including the State government that has chipped in by facilitating meetings for the team with public sector undertakings, like Hindustan Aeronautics Limited. Air India is helping with tickets for a part of the team. However, all this has simply not been enough for Hyperloop India.
The Orcapod, Hyperloop India's entry to the Hyperloop Pod Competition in Hawthorne, California, is being built at the Ulsoor metro station.
Intense efforts are under way to reach out to sponsors willing to fund the project in return for display space on the Orcapod.
Interestingly, while a majority of the team comes from BITS Pilani and other campuses of the college, the highest contribution, of ₹10 lakh, from an educational institution has come from Hindustan University in Chennai, Tamil Nadu.
The team is now planning to unveil the pod on July 30 for a select audience. The event is likely to have a presentation on the Orcapod followed by a discussion on mobility in the future. “Despite the last leg of the project facing many challenges, we hope to receive the support needed to pull this off,” Ms. Gowda said.
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