Jon Christensen, writing for the New Yorker:
The Hyperloop may be nothing more than vaporware designed as a critique of high-speed rail for not moving fast enough; in some ways it seems effective, particularly as the high-speed-rail project has become bogged down in lawsuits, struggles over permits, and other controversies. But in truth, it’s not a particularly useful solution—it doesn’t solve the real, complicated issues inherent to constructing fast, effective rail transit. It merely elides them, all while propagating the kind of magical thinking that often gathers around high-tech billionaires—like the notion that they really can annihilate space and time.