UST: News

On July 6, 2016 the SkyWay Group of Companies and the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava signed an agreement on cooperation. Deputy Director on development Victor Baburin described the results of this business trip, the prospects for the SkyWay project and the current balance of power in the international transportation arena in a techno-economic webinar:

"We have approached the stage, which should logically follow the construction phase. It is important not to forget that EcoTechnoPark is not an end in itself, but only an intermediate step on the way to the second part, which follows the demonstration of the test site - the sale of technology. In the ultra-conservative industry called "transport", where we all work, the sales of technology is a result of longtime negotiations with the parties who take decisions.

The current market situation shows us that the world needs new technologies. Recently we had a meeting with the Dean of the Slovak University of Technology, with the person who has a lot of experience in the field of civil engineering. He did not ask amateurish questions, all the issues regarding the functional ability of our technologies were taken completely off the table long ago. The best thing for him is to start cooperating with us to bring the maximum benefit to the faculty and the country as a whole. That is, people with extensive experience in engineering have no questions about our technology. The questions remain only from those who have education at the level of the ninth grade".

Victor also touched upon the issues of funding: "McKinsey Global Institute has produced a very interesting statistical analysis about the future of the global market. According to this forecast, by 2030 the world should spend on its development 70 trillion dollars. Repeat: 70 trillion dollars. This is the official conclusion of one of the world's best institutes of statistics, which has a high reputation among large global corporations. And when they tell us that USD 400 billion (the cost of the SkyWay intellectual property estimated by independent international appraisers) is a lot, it becomes simply ridiculous: this is transport, this is infrastructure, this is something without which the world cannot develop further.

Today there was published an article announcing that the Hyperloop developers estimated how much one kilometer of their road would cost - more than 40 million dollars. A miracle did not happen. Earlier they said that one kilometer of their road would cost 3-5 million dollars that set Hyperloop levelled with SkyWay by financial indicators. It turns out they were wrong by 10 times. It may take a few months, they will be wrong, say, by five times more. When construction begins, the cost of the road will increase by several times more. Therefore, when somebody tells us with horror that some distinguished person or some reputable organization supported our potential competitors, we only smile: when emotions disappear, dry engineering logic and numbers come forward, everything becomes clear and comments are not required".

At the end of his speech, the Deputy Director on development summed up: "We work in the usual engineering technology field. You support us, very reputable technological and financial experts support us. The storyline of the series called SkyWay is just beginning to unwind".