The bankruptcy of Dutch startup Hardt Hyperloop marks the latest setback for a technology that once promised to revolutionize long-distance travel at speeds approaching 1,200 kilometres per hour.
The company, which emerged from a student team at Delft University of Technology, had been working on a futuristic transport system in which passenger capsules would travel through low-pressure tubes. The vision was ambitious: Paris from Amsterdam in under an hour, Rome within two.
Idea from Elon Musk
Hardt was founded in 2017 after its founders won a global hyperloop design competition organised by Elon Musk. The company raised tens of millions of euros in investment and public funding, including support from the European Union, Dutch railway operator NS, and regional authorities.
In Veendam, in the north of the Netherlands, a test facility was built to demonstrate and refine the technology. Despite that progress, the company was unable to secure sufficient new funding and was declared bankrupt in early March 2026. A curator has been appointed, and it remains unclear whether parts of the company or its technology could be restarted under new ownership.
Hardt’s collapse does not stand alone. The hyperloop sector has been steadily shrinking after a decade of intense hype. The most prominent player, Virgin Hyperloop (formerly Hyperloop One), backed by Richard Branson, shut down in late 2023 despite raising more than half a billion dollars in investment.
The company had conducted the first passenger test in a hyperloop capsule in Nevada in 2020, but failed to translate the demonstration into commercial projects.
The broader idea of the hyperloop was first popularised by Elon Musk in a 2013 white paper. The concept envisions small passenger pods moving through near-vacuum tubes to eliminate air resistance, theoretically allowing speeds comparable to aircraft while remaining energy-efficient.
Musk himself never attempted to build the system commercially, but his proposal sparked a wave of startups, research projects, and international competitions.
Test tracks in the US and Europe
Over the past decade, several countries have experimented with hyperloop technology. Test tracks have been built in the United States and Europe, while companies such as Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, TransPod, and various Chinese research institutes have explored similar systems. Yet none has succeeded in building a full commercial passenger route.
Part of the problem lies in the enormous infrastructure requirements. Unlike conventional railways, hyperloop systems require entirely new sealed tubes, vacuum-pumping systems, and extremely precise construction to safely maintain high speeds. Estimates for construction costs often exceed those of high-speed rail, which already requires expensive dedicated tracks.
Safety is another concern frequently raised by engineers. In a system built around long, sealed tubes with reduced air pressure, emergency evacuation becomes far more complicated than on conventional railways. Any technical failure inside the tube could halt the entire line until pressure is restored and passengers are safely removed.
Capacity has also emerged as a practical challenge. Many hyperloop designs rely on relatively small capsules carrying a few dozen passengers each. Even with frequent departures, that could translate into lower passenger capacity than modern high-speed trains, which can carry hundreds of passengers per train and operate multiple trains per hour.
High-speed train wins
Meanwhile, conventional high-speed rail continues to improve. Trains such as the French TGV or German ICE already reach speeds above 300 km/h and connect city centres directly.
For many routes, the time savings promised by hyperloop would be limited once factors such as acceleration, safety margins, and station access are taken into account.
None of this means the underlying technologies are entirely without future potential. Research into magnetic levitation, vacuum systems and ultra-high-speed rail continues in several countries.
China, for example, is experimenting with ‘vacuum maglev’ concepts that combine elements of magnetic levitation trains with partially evacuated tubes, aiming for speeds well above conventional rail.
Still, after a decade of ambitious announcements and costly experiments, the hyperloop’s central promise—a global network of passenger tubes connecting major cities at airline speeds—remains distant.
With the bankruptcy of Hardt, one of Europe’s last major hyperloop developers, the idea appears to be losing momentum. In that sense, hyperloop may not be a dead-born child, but it increasingly resembles a technological detour rather than the next revolution in transport.
The idea may survive in research labs and experimental projects, yet for the foreseeable future the world’s fastest practical land transport is likely to remain the system that hyperloop once promised to replace: the high-speed train.
