Journalism of Courage
HYPERLOOP. This revolutionary mass transportation idea may not have gained much ground despite being pushed by global icons such as Elon Musk, mainly due to the prohibitive costs involved. But over the past two years in Pune, a hardware start-up has been quietly pursuing a dream to build India’s first ever hyperloop system.
Says Pranay Luniya, co-founder and CEO of the company, “Our work involves development of systems, software as well the hardware component. And over the past five years, we have been working on innovations that can make the system comparatively cheaper… linear motors, tubes and other components.”
Luniya says the aim is to develop a system that would be economical for India. “Worldwide, the per-km cost of a hyperloop system is in the range of Rs 250-300 crore. Our calculations show that our system would cost around Rs 150-200 crore. In fact, our hyperloop would even be cheaper than the bullet train being built,” he said. The Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project involves an estimated overall cost of Rs 1,10,000 crore.
Last week, Quintrans Hyperloop received a boost when the Pune-based AIC-Pinnacle Entrepreneurship Forum decided to support them.
Dr Sudhir Mehta, founder AIC Pinnacle, the incubator supported by the Pinnacle Group, says the start-up presents an opportunity to produce patents on both software and hardware. “In India, product-based start-ups, which produce patents, are not too many. This start-up caught our eye as it is working in the field of transportation — something which we are also into,” he said.
Hyperloop as a technology, Mehta said, was “like landing on the moon”. Pinnacle’s support, he said, would help the start-up in terms of engineering as well as technology. “It is an ambitious project. And given the cost benefit they have spoken about, it has immense potential,” he said.
By definition, the hyperloop concept involves a high-speed transportation system that includes pods, terminals and tubes. In basic terms, the system aims to run in a frictionless environment with electromagnetic force being the main driver.
In 2017, talks were on for the first Pune-Mumbai Hyperloop project, which would enable travel between the two cities in 25 minutes. The project was conceptualised in two phases: a demonstration phase of 11.5 km at a cost of $500 million followed by a commercial phase costing $8-9 billion.
The project sparked a lot of buzz at the time but failed to take-off due to various reasons, including the cost involved and questions over safety since such a system had not been established anywhere else in the world.
Other than Luniya, Quintrans Hyperloop has Kartik Kulkarni as COO, and Anirudhha Atigre and Prasanna Kadambi as CTOs – all are on board as co-founders, too. All four of them are alumni of the MIT World Peace University and came together in 2018 to work on the technology in their college years.
The company was incorporated in 2021, and has so far seen investment of around Rs 25 lakh, including from Seed Fund India Scheme and TIDE 2.0 Scheme.
So far, the company has built a model tube of 3 m in length and 1.5 m in diameter. “The working prototype would be 100-200 m in length and 3 m in diameter and be ready in the next 12-14 months,” Luniya said.
Across the world, hyperloop has been in the news with several companies and governments taking up the concept seriously. Countries like Saudi Arabia, the US and Canada have either started work or plan to start work on hyperloop projects. However, as of now, much progress has not been made except for working prototypes that carry cargo.
