Today's announcement of Hyperloop by Elon Musk should come as no surprise. Radically safer and more efficient transportation is known:
- Freight railroads average 480 ton-miles per gallon.
- The Personal Rapid Transit (PRT or PodC
ar) network in Morgantown, WV has delivered 110 million oil-free, injury-free passenger-miles. Attached are letters from the Mayor of Morgantown on the effectiveness of PRT in his city and Senators just after the 1973 Oil Embargo on PRT as a solution to energy self-reliance and economic stability.
Yet the announcement will come as a surprise to many. It is at 1:30 PDT.
Teasers are:
Musk's Tesla Motors (TSLA) and SolarCity (SCTY) are up 300% over the last year. The investment opportunities of thinking differently about transportation and energy are profound.
Innovation in transportation is still very complex. Government monopolies dominate the market. Most of the opportunities in the market are private. ET3 and JPods (author is the founder of JPods) are examples.
Investments into this market will likely progress quickly once a legal framework for privately funded transportation is restored.
Investors will have to watch for those opportunities. The scale of the investment opportunity is enormous. Costs can be converted to profits. According to DOE cars average 32.4 passenger-miles per gallon. Freight railroads are over 130 times more efficient, averaging 480 ton-miles per gallon. Companies that convert these costs to profits will dominate investment opportunities in the coming decade.
Freight rail efficiencies are practical in systems such at ET3 and Hyperloop.
My technology, JPods is only 90% more efficient than highways. JPods networks are not fast. They just get you to and from work at 1/10th the energy and no car payment.
Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it. I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
Additional disclosure: Author is the founder of JPods, an urban transportation network.