Thanks! But I don't think either Bob or I have said that it CAN'T work - just pointed out some of the forms of "magical" thinking used by the current promoters and their more credulous followers/media flacks. Maglev certainly does work, and has been used in several (though not many) applications around the world, and considered in many more. Even the tube-contained variety aka hyperloop isn't especially new as a concept. It's just that in today's hype-driven world some of the claims don't seem fully-thought-out, and as usual it's Great New Thing (Shiny!) ignoring the concept of building on the historical (what's history?) technical record.

Note that some of the Musk-driven writeups actually aren't bad as preliminary thoughts; in some ways, they're more credible than the stuff created (mostly by politicians, not engineers) to promote the HSR proposition. And for Big Projects you usually do need a cheerleader. But it's one thing to demonstrate theoretical feasibility; it's another to do the engineering and make it work. The engineering is now being done, perhaps, by a couple of startups inspired by the concept, so we don't REALLY know yet how well it will work and how to deal with some of the more obvious issues (you've hit on a few). I wouldn't worry about the electricity, though, since the same issue (worse, probably, due to heavier vehicles and more drag) applies to HSR and electrified transport in general. And California does actually have a fairly plentiful power supply, at least during the day.