Hyperloop – Future Transportation Technologies

admin | October 29, 2017

Hyperloop by Elon Musk is the future transportation technology. In Musk’s words, a hyperloop is a system to build a tube over or under the ground that contains a special environment. Hyperloop is expected to become 5th mode of transportation, standing beside planes, trains, automobiles, and boats in the pantheon of mechanized movement.

Hyperloop One, previously known as Hyperloop One or Hyperloop Technologies is a company in Los Angeles, California, that is working to commercialize the Hyperloop for moving passengers and/or cargo at airline speeds at a fraction of the cost of air travel. The concept of Hyperloop transportation was introduced and named by Elon Musk in August 2013, although he is not involved with Hyperloop One or any other company developing Hyperloop.

Hyperloop is essentially a train system that Musk calls “a cross between a Concorde, a railgun, and an air hockey table”. It’s based on the very high-speed transit (VHST) system proposed in 1972, which combines a magnetic levitation train and a low-pressure transit tube. It evolves some of the original ideas of VHST, but it still uses tunnels and pods or capsules to move from place to place.

Hyperloop isn’t about going as fast as possible because you’ll have to deal with high G-forces when it came to turns, which isn’t ideal for passenger travel. Speeds of over 700mph are suggested for journeys. Planes, trains, and automobiles may have carried us through the 20th century, but these days, they’re old news. The transportation of the future will be more along the lines of magnetic levitation, jetpacks, and zip lines that fit in a backpack and they could be here sooner than you think.

Future Transportation Technologies

Gregory Winfree, the administrator of the Department of Transportation’s Research and Innovative Technology Administration, told FoxNews:

New technologies have the potential to make our roads and transit systems safer, greener and more efficient. We are working hard to ensure that these technologies can be integrated safely into our existing system.

The future transport technologies include self-driving vehicles which will zip through invisible streets of data. In the next decades, bikes will still be a big part of how we move around urban areas. But while many people will continue to use bikes for health reasons, new technologies may overtake them, offering better ways to zip short distances inside cities.

Magnetic levitation trains are not just a lofty dream held over from the 1950s. They are already in operation in Shanghai and Japan. South Korea is building a maglev train that will operate within the Incheon Airport, and China reportedly has a second maglev train in development.

While SUV and truck sales have been on the rise worldwide, that trend has been boosted by low gasoline prices, which can’t last given the finite supplies of fossil fuels. Cars will become much smaller and smaller.

Hyperloop by Elon Musk

Hyperloop by Elon Musk is one of the most exciting innovations in transportation. Rising on nearly airless tubes at 800 mph, the train will transport you from LA to San Francisco in just 30 minutes. Elon Musk announced a design scheme back in August, but FoxNews.com has learned the concept is more than a pipe dream it is now a real technology in development.

How does Hyperloop work?

Hyperloop proposes to move away from traditional wheels by using air bearings for pods instead. This will have the pod floating on air. It’s similar to maglev, in which the electromagnetic levitation of the train means there is no friction like a traditional train that runs on tracks.

The pod will be battery-powered and propelled by an external linear electric motor an electric induction motor that produces motion in a straight line rather than rotational motion similar to those used in the Tesla Model S. This motor would propel the pod to subsonic velocity that is, slower than the speed of sound, and provide a boost about every 70 miles. The linear electric motor is needed for as little as 1 percent of the tube length, so is not particularly costly.

Hyperloop One

Hyperloop One, one of the several start-ups racing to make Elon Musk’s vision for “super-fast travel” a reality, is embroiled in a lawsuit that raises questions about its finances and direction. Hyperloop One is currently developing passenger and cargo system routes in the United States, Canada, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the United Arab Emirates. It is also in early talks with the Indian government to build one in India. Its publicly stated goal is to deliver a fully operational Hyperloop system by 2021.

McKinsey report on container shipping in 2067 predicts autonomous 50K TEU vessels

Autonomous transport chain to manage end-to-end ocean shipping flows, authors forecast.

By DC Velocity Staff

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In 50 years, containerships will operate autonomously and will be nearly three times the size of the largest current vessels. There may only be three or four major liner companies, and they will operate either as digitally enabled independents or as small units of tech giants. Freight forwarding as a stand-alone business will become extinct, because digital interactions will reduce the need for intermediaries to manage logistics services among multiple stakeholders. Customers, whether they seek deep relationships with carriers or just the lowest rates in transactional form, will take service transparency and reliability as a given.

Those are the some of the projections to come out of a study released yesterday by consultancy McKinsey & Co. on how the global liner industry, today one of the world's most technologically hidebound businesses, can re-invent itself for the digital age. The authors, Steve Saxon and Matt Stone, framed their findings with a historical perspective: In 1967, McKinsey was commissioned by the British Transport Docks Board to assess the impact of seagoing containers, which had been developed in the U.S. a decade earlier. The first ships expressly designed to transport this equipment had just been launched, and McKinsey advised its client—with great prescience—that containerization would forever transform the economics of ocean shipping.

Looking out to 2067, Saxon and Stone foresee ships with a capacity of 50,000 twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) containers plying the seas, perhaps alongside modular, drone-like floating containers. A fully autonomous transport chain will extend from loading, stowage, and sailing to unloading directly onto autonomous trains and trucks, with last-mile deliveries by drones, they said.

Container volumes will be two to five times present-day levels, but the trade lanes will dramatically change, the authors contend. Short-haul intraregional traffic will increase as converging global incomes, automation, and robotics disperse manufacturing footprints, they said. Successful companies will be closely connected through data ecosystems, and will have fully digitized customer interactions and operating systems, Saxon and Stone forecast.

The authors acknowledge that secular changes in consumer behavior—notably a desire to favor consumption of services over goods—mean that global trade growth will not significantly outpace global GDP as it has for decades. However, as long as global economies seek growth, there will be always be stuff available to fill the boxes, they said.

"Economic growth goes hand in hand with specialization, which in turn promotes further trade," they wrote. "So long as underlying economic growth is positive, trade, too, is likely to grow, even if the multiplier (the multiple of container trade growth over GDP growth) is less than one."

The real impact of these changes, the authors contend, may be to shorten the distance between trading partners, thereby limiting the growth of long-distance international trade.

The Power of Amazon Prime

Oct. 24, 2017 12:22 PM ET

Deena Zaidi

Summary

According to a recent study, Amazon Prime has grown to 90 million users in the US.

The study comes ahead of Amazon’s third quarterly report, soon to be released on Oct 26, 2017.

As Amazon aggressively launches Prime across the globe, investors may expect a strong growth opportunity.

But even though massive prime membership means good news for investors and Amazon, it comes with a few warning signs.

As the number of Prime membership goes up, investors should expect Amazon (AMZN) to dominate a larger market share both within the US and across the globe. The increase in Prime membership continues to add a promising revenue stream for Amazon and may only rise in the coming years.

A recent Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) report finds that the number of US Prime members has increased to 90 million, up by 38% since last year (that’s double in two years). For Amazon, a growing Prime membership comes at a perfect time – a few days ahead of its third-quarterly earnings report.

Off late, Amazon has been shifting gears to disrupt a variety of sectors including grocery, video streaming, and fashion. A loyal Prime growth confirms that the e-commerce giant will cater to a larger global audience to keep members hooked through its integrated services. Additional factors like Amazon’s second headquarters only captures the tremendous future growth for the company. The recent race for the company’s HQ2 has already become intense, with the Seattle firm receiving 238 proposals from cities and regions across the US, Canada, and Mexico.

Launched in 2005, Amazon Prime has seen massive growth and, since then, the company has ensured that non-prime members understand that they are missing out on great deals and maybe a potential 30-minute drone delivery in the near future.

In 2015 Letter to Shareholders, Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos pointed out the importance of Amazon Prime. Calling AWS, Marketplace, and Prime as three “bold bets at Amazon that worked”, he further added, “We want Prime to be such a good value, you’d be irresponsible not to be a member.”

Like AWS, Prime has become crucial to Amazon’s vast growing business and Prime members are spending an average of $1,300 annually as compared to the $700 per year by non-Prime members. It’s no wonder that Amazon is aggressively expanding benefits for its loyal Prime members, simultaneously encouraging non-members to switch to Prime. The study shows that 63% of customers shopping on Amazon.com are actually Prime members.

This year, Amazon broke its third annual Prime record with sales up by more than 60% during the same 30-hr window in 2016. Prime day remains exclusive to Prime members and is a way that the company uses to encourage more annual Prime membership signups and to promote its own products like Amazon Echo.

But while Amazon Prime ‘lightning deals’ act as a bait for non-Prime members, for long-term investors the growing number of Amazon Prime means more value, a strong growth strategy and an increased domination of Amazon across different industries.

To start with, Prime membership costs $99 per year, or $10.99 a month. The extracted data from the CIRP report suggests that 90 million subscribers with $99 per year, could easily generate $9 billion in revenue. And with an average spending of $1300 per year than their non-member counterparts, they also appear to be loyal enough to contribute to Amazon’s long-term growth through purchases.

The CIRP study reveals that loyalty of Amazon Prime remains high and the rate of those “definitely” and “probably” renewing prime membership (once a member) has been 90% for the past few quarters.

Offers for Prime Members

Amazon’s constant efforts to engage more users through its Prime program is a strong signal that Amazon is keeping Prime core to its future business strategies.

In selected metros, Prime members get free same-day delivery on over a million items and free 2-hour delivery with Prime Now on daily essentials and groceries and free online streaming of videos. Amongst other perks, Prime members have access to video streaming service. With Amazon Studio investing heavily in original programming and in-house production, it is quite evident that its closest competitor is the undisputed leader, Netflix. Recently, The Economist mentioned that in 2017, “Amazon is expected to spend $4.5bn on television and film content, roughly twice what HBO will spend.”

This year Amazon announced Prime Wardrobe for its Prime members. The service allows them to order clothes, accessories, and shoes at no upfront cost and allows them to try it before buying it within seven days. The program is still in beta testing phase but the launch can bring significant disruption to the traditional fashion outlets. With free shipping and returns, Prime members will get discounts depending on the number of items they choose to buy.

Another benefit that Amazon has given to Prime members is through its recent purchase of Whole Foods. By significantly altering the system of grocery shopping, Amazon already slashed prices for shoppers after the takeover. The merger added benefits for Prime members, who will receive “special savings and in-store benefits” at Whole Foods. After the $13.7 billion merger, Moody’s estimated that 38% of Whole Foods customers or 5 million households were not Prime members. It further mentioned that half of these customers could switch to Prime membership by the end of 2019.

With its ventures like Amazon Go and Amazon Books, the company may also use the Prime membership to drive the hybrid plan of its brick and mortar system with online facilities.

Strong Logistics and Wide Demographic

Supply and logistics to meet rising demand of Prime members is not a huge problem for Amazon. Powered by a wide network of Amazon Hubs and fulfillment centers, Amazon already has a significant supply and logistics system in place. Unlike, traditional brick and mortar store which are slowly moving business online, the firm is not wasting any time in expanding its network for speedy and efficient delivery, which in turn will give it an edge over its competitors. Across the US, e-commerce giant already has 140 fulfillment centers where ordered goods are packed and shipped.

According to a new study conducted by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, the US Prime members have increased by 38% from the previous year and there are now 90 million US members. The study also reflects that as many as 63% of customers shopping from Amazon.com are Prime members. Though Amazon does not release the numbers of its Prime members, a closer look suggests that increasing Prime membership remains core to Amazon’s vast business.

Amazon is gradually expanding the Prime membership to cater to a larger demographic – something that Snap and Facebook have been doing for a while now. Within this year, Amazon took steps to reach a wider audience, with special perks for Prime members. First, it announced a full year for the Amazon Prime Student Plan at a price tag of $5.49 per month. This is half the price of a standard Prime account. The Prime membership comes free for 6 months, subsequently leading to 50% off on a continued Prime membership.

But it’s not the college-going kids that remain a target audience for Amazon Prime. In another press release, the Seattle-based giant wooed teens between the age groups 14-17 years, providing them with their own login. If parents are Amazon Prime subscribers, then the teens also get access to benefits at no extra cost. The app login allows them to stream videos, games, and shop while keeping their parents informed.

The move to encourage shoppers to buy on Amazon and offer discounts is not surprising. A report by Pew Research showed that as many as eight-in-ten Americans are now online shoppers: 79% have made an online purchase of any type.

Global Prime Growth

Globally, Amazon is aggressively launching Prime. Amazon Prime Now (free delivery under two hrs.) has gradually extended to Asia, UK, and Europe. Amazon Japan has teamed up with pharmaceutical chains to deliver cosmetics and daily supplies within one hour after placing the order. Launched in 2012, Amazon in India is already the second largest e-commerce industry, competing closely with Flipkart (founded by ex-Amazonians in 2008). Amazon launched its prime membership in the country in 2016, with 25%-30% of Indian customers opting for it.

The two-hour delivery service, Prime Now service was recently launched for users in Singapore, a market that has been untapped by Amazon. The initial launch captured three times the order volume than it did for its first order in Seattle back in 2005, showcasing a huge untapped demand for the retail giant. Reportedly, the retail giant had to hail Uber to meet the delivery demand for its Prime Now members.

Warning Signs

But while the outlook may look bright for Amazon, there are warning signs when one looks at Amazon as the aggressive dominant company.

There have been reservations regarding the actual number of Amazon’s Prime membership. Amazon remains tightlipped about the number of its Prime members and only mentions that there are “tens of millions of Prime members around the world”.

So it may not be surprising if the official figures look very different and are in fact, highly inflated.

In the past, Moody’s led by Charles O’Shea had called CIRP’s 85 million US Prime members (reported last year) an “overstated” number, made “in the absence of any real guidance from the company itself.” Based on an evaluation, Moody’s believes the actual Prime members to be close to 50 million in the US. If this is to be believed, then the results will lead to a different math esp. around the revenues earned and costs incurred by Amazon.

Besides a debate around Amazon Prime, it’s worth to note that the click to Amazon Prime membership comes with high costs. Reports in the past by GeekWire suggest that the shipping costs for Amazon reached an all-time high of close to $7.2 billion in 2016, net of shipping-related revenue like Amazon Prime membership fees. Even the marketing spending to drive customers to its website is not cheap. Last year, this cost rose 38% in 2016, amounting to $7.2 billion and reportedly, went above the total spending of Wal-Mart Stores, Target, Best Buy, Home Depot, and Kroger.

While Amazon seems to be prepared for the upcoming cut-throat competition for quick delivery and competitive prices, its roadmap remains opaque. Many of Amazon’s fresh ventures like Prime Wardrobe and Amazon Go are in experimenting phase and the company could still be testing and mapping out efficient ways to cut shipping costs for free delivery to its Prime members.

The competition across the traditional retail is also just getting heated up especially after Amazon’s physical launch via Amazon Books. Given the nascent stage, it is difficult to gauge where Amazon will stand with its diversified ventures like Amazon Fashion and Whole Foods merger.

Through the hybrid, a system of brick and mortar and online experience, Amazon directly competes with tech giants like Google as well as with retailers like Walmart, Costco, and Target.

Many traditional retail stores are already shifting focus to online selling, creating bigger room for competition through collaborations. Recently, Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) (GOOGL) and Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) announced that Walmart products will be offered on Google Express, Google’s online shopping mall. Walmart was recently joined by Target to expand partnership for voice shopping.

Amazon’s Prime launch in China also faces hurdles that may impact the firm’s intention to compete for a global market share. Government controls, censorship and a strong presence of local rivals like Alibaba, Amazon Prime may take a while to launch in markets like that of China.

The words of caution that come with this disruptive force should not be completely ignored especially for investors who are looking for short-term profits or extremely safe bets.

Surely, Prime remains a very important growth driver for Amazon and as this membership expands in both scale and scope, the e-commerce giant will undoubtedly continue to focus on strengthening it – an investment opportunity that will result in generous results in the long run.

Walmart Testing Robots for Detecting Out-of-Stocks

By Randy Hofbauer – 10/26/2017

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is testing a new robot that scans shelves for out-of-stocks, incorrect prices, and wrong or missing labels in a small number of its stores.

The new shelf-scanning technology is intended to free up floor-level associates’ time to focus more on doing what machines typically can’t do as well as humans: better serve customers and sell merchandise. Stores currently testing the technology are in Arkansas, Pennsylvania and California.

Based on the initial tests, Walmart plans to expand the robots to an additional 50 locations. As with anything introduced to stores, associate and customer feedback will guide how and where the mega-retailer will use the technology down the line.

“This combination of people and technology is helping make our stores more convenient and easier to shop, ensuring that products are available when our customers want them,” the Bentonville, Ark.-based company said in a blog entry. “It’s just another example of how we’re using technology to save our associates and customers time.”

In an interview with Reuters, Jeremy King, chief technology officer for Walmart U.S. and ecommerce, said that the robots are 50 percent more productive than their human counterparts and can scan shelves significantly more accurately and three times faster. Store employees typically have time to scan shelves only twice a week. Despite their greater efficiency, the robots won’t replace workers or affect employee headcounts in stores.

Walmart’s new test is similar to one by Midwestern grocer Schnucks, which is testing Simbe Robotics’ Tally robot to audit shelves for out-of-stocks, low-stocks, misplaced items and pricing errors.

The technology is similar to other robots currently being tested by grocers in different markets. Minneapolis-based Target Corp. first announced its initiative to test Simbe Robotics’ shelf-scanning robot, named Tally, in stores last year. Moreover, Midwestern grocer Schnuck Markets, based in St. Louis, recently revealed its incorporation of Tally at several locations, while Carlisle, Pa.-based Ahold USA, at a Giant Food Stores location, just began testing Marty, a robot with the same purpose that also detects floor hazards – and sports a pair of plastic googly eyes to make it more customer-friendly.

The robots mark another recent initiative by Walmart to add automation to its stores. Among them is the growing number of stores with self-service “Pickup Towers,” from which customers can get orders online; the expansion of Scan & Go checkout-free technology that puts “the checkout process in the hands of the user”; and the rollout of its Express Lane to digitize moneyand pharmacy services across stores nationwide.

Amazon Key

Report: Amazon to control nearly 45% of e-commerce in 2017

AUTHOR

Daphne Howland@daphnehowland

PUBLISHED

Oct. 25, 2017

Dive Brief:

• As online sales in the U.S. grow by 15.8% to $452.76 billion by the end of this year, Amazon is poised to capture 43.5% (or $196.75 billion) of that, according to a study from eMarketer emailed to Retail Dive.
• That’s close to 4% of all retail sales in the U.S., according to eMarketer’s research, which also found that e-commerce overall will account for 9% of all U.S. retail sales by the end of 2017.
• Amazon’s nearest rivals are quite far behind. No. 2 eBay will see its e-commerce sales grow to $30.66 billion by the end of this year, but its share of total e-commerce sales will drop to 6.8%, according to eMarketer’s estimates. The firm estimates Walmart’s e-commerce sales will rise 46.8% to $16.21 billion by year’s end — but they will remain just 3.6% of U.S. online retail and 0.3% of total retail, despite Walmart’s gargantuan effort to boost its online operations.

Dive Insight:

After two decades of adding new categories and features to its platform, Amazon is dominating e-commerce. In fact, just 10 companies — Apple, The Home Depot, Best Buy, Macy’s, Wayfair, Costco and QVC, in addition to Amazon, eBay and Walmart — account for nearly two-thirds of overall U.S. e-commerce sales.

Indeed, even as legacy retailers have worked to build out their e-commerce and multi-channel operations, online retail remains below 10% of all retail sales, according to eMarketer and to the U.S. Commerce Department’s research, which pegged it at 8.4% earlier this year.

The relative narrowness of online retail may be why Amazon is expanding its brick-and-mortar play — opening more bookstores and buying grocery chain Whole Foods this year, along with pop-up stores and a few convenience stores. There is undeniable synergy between physical stores and online sales, with brick-and-mortar helping to boost e-commerce thanks to services like in-store pickup of online orders, as well as the marketing value of a physical location in a given area.

That leaves eBay at a considerable disadvantage, and the site “has stagnant growth and is losing share” despite its second-place ranking, eMarketer said. Amazon’s sales were more six times eBay’s, according to eMarketer.

The expense of e-commerce retail also has yet to be well rationalized by most retailers. That includes Amazon, which burns billions of dollars a year in shipping costs but, unlike rivals, has a lucrative cloud services business that delivers huge profits. Meanwhile, its retail operation, even after 20 years, isn’t very profitable relative to its sales.

Analysts are increasingly taking into account the damage the shift to e-commerce is inflicting on retail margins, however. In addition to tepid sales overall, “the shift to the variable-cost model of e-commerce from the fixed-cost store model continues to suppress operating margins for the sector,” Moody’s Investors Services retail analysts said in a May report on U.S. department stores emailed to Retail Dive.

The variable cost model will undermine digital growth at some point, according to retail analyst Nick Egelanian, president of retail development consultants SiteWorks International. “When shipping costs are fully allocated to the consumer some time in the future, we will see the rate of internet sales growth sharply decline,” he said in an email to Retail Dive earlier this year.

Amazon launches Prime for business customers

AUTHOR

Daphne Howland@daphnehowland

PUBLISHED

Oct. 25, 2017

Dive Brief:

• Amazon on Tuesday launched Business Prime Shipping, a paid annual membership program for registered multi-user business customers in the U.S. and Germany.
• Amazon Business customers can sign up for an annual Business Prime Shipping membership based on the number of users on their business account: $499 for up to 10 users; $1,299 for up to 100 users; and $10,099 for more than 100 users, according to a company press release.
• In the U.S., Business Prime Shipping offers unlimited free two-day shipping on eligible items for all users on an Amazon Business account.

Dive Insight:

Staples and Office Depot, which are each scrambling to strategize growth after their merger plans failed to pass muster in court last year, must be grinding their teeth as news from Amazon Business continues to roll out.

And there could be more to come, as promised by Amazon Prime Vice President Greg Greeley in a statement on Tuesday. “We are excited to introduce a shipping program designed to meet the needs of businesses and will continue to innovate on behalf of customers to make business purchasing even easier,” Greeyley said.

That’s no surprise, actually, considering the rapid growth of B2B e-commerce, according to Adrien Nussenbaum, U.S. CEO and co-founder of marketplace firm Mirakl, who noted Forrester Research’s report that the market will reach $1.2 trillion by 2021, (compared to the online consumer market, estimated to be $645 billion in the same period).

“Amazon and B2B companies are recognizing the importance of having an aggressive e-commerce plan,” he told Retail Dive in an email. “In just five years since first launching AmazonSupply, Amazon Business has amassed over 1 million business customers. For this reason, it’s imperative that manufacturers and distributors seek out new business models to better serve customers. Otherwise they’re about to get ‘Amazoned.’”

But he recommends against giving in to the temptation of joining Amazon’s online juggernaut. “Partnering with Amazon is not a long-term solution,” Nussenbaum said. “Instead, B2B players can learn from companies like Hewlett Packard Enterprise, who’ve launched their own online marketplace to better serve customers, and continue to not only hold but increase their market share.”

The swift expansion of Amazon’s B2B business is precisely what Staples and Office Depot described to a skeptical Federal Trade Commission last year as their merger plans faltered, according to Matt Sargent, senior vice president of retail for Frank N. Magid Associates.

Beyond the fact that Amazon’s B2B growing prowess is allowing the e-commerce giant onto that playing field, its programming in the space also offers companies real differentiation. “This offering addresses many pain points for businesses, including the ability to track shipments and procurements,” Sargent said.

This summer Sargent’s firm found in survey data that 56% of workplace purchasers had recently bought general office supplies from Amazon. Another 53% had bought technology products and 42% had purchased break room and cleaning supplies from the e-commerce giant, according to Magid data.

B2B sales have been the bright spots of Staples’ and Office Depot’s respective businesses in recent years. That’s one reason why Staples’ new private equity owners are spinning off the corporate division from the retail side, and why Office Depot recently acquired an IT services company to complement its corporate sales division.

The profit in those divisions was the likely draw for Amazon, which famously sees other companies’ margins as an opportunity to enter a sector.