No Hyperloop Trains in Sight: NITI Aayog Member V K Saraswat
According to V K Saraswat, a member of NITI Aayog, India is not expected to adopt hyperloop technology for ultra high-speed trains in the near future. This is due to the technology being at a relatively early stage of development and may not be financially feasible at present.
Saraswat, who heads the committee to study the technological and commercial viability of the Virgin Hyperloop technology, further said that some foreign companies have shown interest in bringing the technology to India.
“As far as the Hyperloop technology is concerned, we found that the offers from abroad are not very viable options. They are at a very low level of technology maturity,” he told PTI in an interview.
Hyperloop is a high-speed train that travels in a tube in a vacuum. The technology is proposed by Elon Musk, who is behind the electric car company Tesla and the commercial space transport company SpaceX.
“So we haven’t given it much importance, and as it is today, it’s just a study program. I don’t expect the hyperloop to become part of the transportation framework in the near future,” he said.
On November 9, 2020, the Virgin Hyperloop test run was carried out on a 500-meter track in Las Vegas, USA, in a pod, as hyperloop vehicles are called, with passengers, including an Indian, in a closed tube. over 161 km/h.
According to Saraswati, the offers received are at a very low level of maturity and “we cannot invest in this kind of technology”.
Virgin Hyperloop is one of a handful of companies trying to build such a passenger transportation system.
Maharashtra has considered the hyperloop as a public infrastructure exercise and accepted the Virgin Hyperloop-DP World Consortium as the original proponent of the Mumbai-Pune hyperloop project.
Responding to a question about India’s dependence on lithium imports from China, Saraswat said that the production of lithium-ion batteries in India today is very low, so the dependence is on the import of batteries from China and other sources.
“But mostly it’s from China because competitively Chinese batteries are cheaper,” he said.
Noting that India has encouraged the establishment of battery manufacturing facilities in the country, Saraswat said, “Hopefully next year you will have a couple of business houses that will start manufacturing lithium-ion batteries on a large scale in the country.”
About 75 percent of lithium ion imports come from China.
Saraswat said India has been talking to Chile and Bolivia about exploiting lithium mining, based on reports that India should buy certain mining facilities in Chile, Argentina and other places.
“And what’s happened is, instead of the government going directly to these countries and acquiring mines, our private sector has already entered into a business-to-business agreement with some of the companies in these countries and they already have a supply chain agreement to source lithium from these centers.”
Chile, which has the largest lithium reserves, is the world’s second largest producer of lithium.
To a question about the government promoting methanol as an alternative fuel, Saraswat said, “We have completed our trial of blending 15 methanol with diesel.”
He said that all trials with Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) and Ashok Leyland have been successful.
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