These students want to dig tunnels for Hyperloop

Munich, San Francisco Elon Musk is currently letting in Brandenburg Tesla-Building a plant and possibly the largest battery factory in the world. The mobility of the future will thus also be promoted in Germany, the heartland of automobiles. But the Federal Republic could also play a central role in his other visionary projects.

A team from the Technical University of Munich wants to develop the fastest and most precise tunnel boring machine for the underground transport concepts Musks Loop and Hyperloop as part of a competition. “We represent Germany as a technology location and want to bring victory here,” said project manager Kilian Schmid to the Handelsblatt.

One day, the Hyperloop is supposed to transport people at 1200 kilometers per hour like in a pneumatic tube system through an almost evacuated tube. Due to the partial vacuum, the transport capsules that circulate through the tubes are not slowed down by air resistance. Meanwhile, the loop model envisages tunnels in which autonomous cars should travel at high speed.

To get the unresolved technology issues under control and to win people over to the mega-projects, Musk organizes competitions. Students from the Technical University of Munich have won the “SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition” four times in a row with their “TUM Hyperloop”. The 60-strong student initiative “TUM Boring – Innovation in Tunneling” wants to repeat this success with the tunnel boring machine as part of the “Not-a-Boring Competition” – a game with the double meaning of “drilling” and “boring”.

“We think we’re doing well,” says team member Max Peter Herbst. The Munich students have already built a small drill as a test. They were able to further develop a model that Schmid had already built in 2018 at the age of 20. Cities could only get the traffic problem under control if they break new ground. The tunnel concepts could solve many problems.