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money and time on purchasing new land.^401
The optimal environment inside of the tube would
have been vacuum, but it’s incredible difficult to create a
vacuum inside a long tunnel. A better idea is to use pumps
to maintain a low-pressure environment inside the tunnel.
The problem with a low-pressure environment is the air in
the tube. Everyone who has traveled by subway learned
that a subway train has to push air through the tunnel to
move forward. The wind almost blows you away when
you are waiting for a train. Some Indian engineers have
by the way an idea to use this wind to generate electricity
by installing wind turbines.^402 To overcome this problem of
having to push air, Elon said it’s possible to install a fan on
the nose of the pod that transfers air from the front to the
rear of the pod. This fan will also produce an air cushion,
so the pod doesn’t need any wheels.^401
To power each pod, the Hyperloop will use the same
batteries as in a Tesla car. But the batteries will not propel
the pod forward - just power the internal electronics. To
achieve speeds of 760 mph [1 220 km/h], linear electric mo-
tors will be used. A linear electric motor produces a linear
movement, while a traditional electric motor produces a
rotational movement. There’s no need to accelerate each
pod continuously, so linear electric motors will cover about
one percent of the total length of the tube. Solar panels
positioned on the top of the steel tubes will supply power
to these linear electric motors.^401
Each passenger has to pay $20 to get a ticket to travel
in one of the pods for 35 minutes to get from Los Angeles