The Modi government is smitten with Elon Musk. After announcing that they’d invited Tesla to set up factories in India, Union Minister of Roads and Highways Nitin Gadkari has said that his government has offered Hyperloop free and for testing near the Mumbai Pune highway.
Hyperloop, a transit technology that was originally envisioned by Musk, consists of a pressurized tube that carries a pod at fast speeds across land. It travels at a top speed of around a 1000 kmph, and has already conducted some preliminary tests in the US.
Gadkari had met Musk and Tesla officials on Narendra Modi’s visit to Silicon Valley last year. He has revealed that he’d invited officials to explore opportunities in India for the Hyperloop, and invited them to run on an experimental basis along the Mumbai-Pune expressway. They’ve also offered them free land near the port to set up a manufacturing facility.
“I just offered them … they want some road for experimental purpose. I offered them the westerly bypass of Pune connected to the Express Highway. The idea is they can take an experiment between Mumbai and Pune as a pilot project,” he said. ‘”It is up to [them] to decide whether or not to accept my offer,”
If the Hyperloop project does come to India, the Mumbai-Pune distance could be covered in 10 minutes flat.