(Bloomberg) -- Hyperloop Technologies Inc., which is building a super-fast transportation solution based on an idea by billionaire Elon Musk, is in initial talks with the Indian government and companies to partially build and operate the vehicle on some routes, its chief executive officer said.
The Los Angeles-based company, known as Hyperloop One, will decide by end of this year whether its feasible to run the vehicle in India after studying the market, Rob Lloyd said in an interview in New Delhi. The company will locally source a significant part of the components including steel if it decides to move ahead with the plan.
"India turns out to be a massive opportunity obviously for the concept of Hyperloop, which is why there's so much interest," said Lloyd, who's in the country for discussions with the government. "We want to align the stakeholders to actually find a route that makes sense, to do the detailed engineering, do the work on financing that route, think about a public-private partnership."
India, with the world's second-biggest population and seventh biggest land mass, is struggling to match infrastructure growth with rapid urbanization. Prime Minister Narendra Modi plans to spend a record 3.96 trillion rupees ($59 billion) to build and modernize its railways, airports and roads, as the country seeks to improve its facilities to attract companies to invest in the country.
Hyperloop is working on technology that would use magnetic levitation in low-pressure tubes to transport people and goods at airplane-like speeds.
"The market itself makes a lot of sense," Lloyd said, "Our analysis says that between Middle-East, India and parts of the U.S., with a renewed focus on infrastructure, those are logically places where it could happen."
--With assistance from Sarah McBride
To contact the reporter on this story: Anurag Kotoky in New Delhi at akotoky@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sam Nagarajan at samnagarajan@bloomberg.net, Unni Krishnan
Also India: Move Over Bullet Trains, Hyperloop Could Solve India's Need For Speed
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