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Like the bullet train, the Hyperloop didn't take long to attract skepticism. Musk had framed his concept as a fifth way -- an alternative to cars, planes, trains and boats. Citing barriers such as cost and the mountains that rim the Central Valley, one transportation expert called Musk's idea novel, but not a breakthrough. "I don't think it will provide the alternative that he's looking for," said James E. Moore II, director of the transportation engineering program at the University of Southern California. Monday's unveiling lived up to the hype part of its name. Musk has been dropping hints about his system for more than a year during public events, mentioning that it could never crash and would be immune to weather. By the afternoon, the word Hyperloop -- which had been mentioned a handful of times in recent weeks on Twitter -- was being tweeted about 20 times every minute. Hyperloop was the top "hot search" on Google, with more than 200,000 searches. Musk has said he is too focused on other projects to consider actually building the Hyperloop, and instead is publishing an open-source design that anyone can use or modify. That's still the case, he said Monday, but added that if no one else steps forward, he might build a working prototype. That would take three or four years, he said. As with Tesla and SpaceX, Musk mused, there are bound to be unforeseen technical obstacles down the track.
[Associated
Press;
AP National Writer Martha Mendoza contributed to this report from San Jose, Calif.
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