They were invented decades ago.
They have fewer moving parts than wheelbois.
They require less maintenance.
There’s obviously some bottleneck in expanding maglev technology, but what is it?
They were invented decades ago.
They have fewer moving parts than wheelbois.
They require less maintenance.
There’s obviously some bottleneck in expanding maglev technology, but what is it?
Here’s an interesting write-up about an attempt to develop a large-scale urban maglev system in the 1970s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krauss-Maffei_Transurban
tl;dr: there were so many technical issues that when the West German company developing the tech lost funding and the Ontario government took over the project, they immediately abandoned the maglev concept and replaced it with linear-induction propulsion with steel wheels on rails (the mag, without the lev).
Even this tech, which does have a few advantages over conventional rail and is still used today in cities like Vancouver, is falling out of favour due to general logistical issues with using bespoke technology over conventional rail – fewer people know how to build and maintain it, you’re relying on usually just one company to supply your trains and infrastructure until the end of time, you can’t reuse any existing infrastructure, etc. I’d imagine these issues still get in the way of maglev development today – even more so because you can’t even reuse existing rails
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The core technologies that UTDC (then Bombardier, now Alstom) took from this is still being used all over the world. The new Vancouver SkyTrain is still using Linear Induction Motors.