They were invented decades ago.

They have fewer moving parts than wheelbois.

They require less maintenance.

There’s obviously some bottleneck in expanding maglev technology, but what is it?

  • Pons_Aelius@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    The same reason supersonic passenger jets are rare.

    The extra speed comes with a massive increase in costs.

    Travel 30% faster than high speed rail for 10-20 times the cost.

    • frightful_hobgoblin@lemmy.mlOP
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      1 year ago

      Is the claim about “10-20 times the cost” true? The internet says Shanghai maglev cost $1.33 billion for 30.5 km, i.e. less than $44 million/km. Compare https://transitcosts.com/new-data/ or https://transitcosts.com/high-speed-rail-preliminary-data-analysis/

      Secondly, if it is true, why would it be true? Why would it be more expensive to build something with fewer moving parts?

      Supersonic passeenger jets require more energy. Maglev trains require less energy.

      • FiskFisk33@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        all the other complex and important factors aside, air restistance is a formula of speed squared. Meaning for example if you bump speed up by 40% you double air resistance, and therefore double the energy cost of transport.

      • JillyB@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        Japan is in the late stages of developing a maglev section of the Shinkansen. It has liquid helium cooling for semiconductors and lots of considerations to make sure the cabin and surroundings aren’t exposed to very strong magnetic fields. It’s just more expensive to do all that.

        After Japan rolls this out and works out the kinks, it might get cheaper since a lot of they’ve done a lot of the development.

      • Aux@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Maglev’s top speed record is just 5% faster than conventional train speed record. Thus if Maglev is more than 5% more expensive, then it doesn’t make any sense to build them.

        • flux@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Speed records aren’t usually representative of regular use top speeds, are they?

          • Aux@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Well, if we look at actual maglev deployments in the real world, then they are much slower than conventional trains. All of them top out at 160kph, while conventional trains going below 200kph don’t even count as high speed. There’s only one Maglev line in the world which actually goes fast. So if we want to talk about regular speed representation, maglevs are slow and useless.