Dirk Ahlborn, CEO of the company Hyperloop Transportation Technologies which develops hyperloop technology. (source: Sme)
Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT), the company which has developed a new transportation method using capsules powered by solar energy, is to establish a branch and cooperate with companies in Slovakia, according to HTT’s CEO Dirk Ahlborn.
“I came here because we are creating a Slovak branch which will deal with development and production,”said Ahlborn during the international conference GLOBSEC Tatra Summit in Bratislava on October 28, adding that the results of the cooperation should appear in a few months, as quoted by the TASR newswire.
While Ahlborn prefers Bratislava for its location and closeness to major airports, he wants to hire dozens of talented local people. Slovaks are strong in mechanical engineering, material management and data engineering, Ahlborn said.
“We are not here to save but to obtain the highest possible quality,” he added.
HTT welcomes the interest from the Slovakian as well as the Austrian government which would help as the new method of transport requires cooperation from them in the formation of new legislation. However, the Bratislava-Vienna project has a challenger in California, USA where HTT has examined the terrain and is preparing environmental studies despite the bureaucracy there.
“I believe that Slovakia will be the first place to realize our project,” said Ahlborn, as cited by TASR. “While currently we do not see any other appropriate sites in Europe except Slovakia, we are looking at China, India, the Middle East and Africa.”
Hyperloop is the project involving transit capsules powered by solar energy, which move in low-pressure tubes at nearly supersonic speeds. At present, there are only two companies in the world which implement the concept, Hyperloop Technologies and HTT, TASR reported.
