World’s First Cable-Free Elevator is programmed to Zoom Horizontally and Vertically Using Maglev Tech. The elevator could help diversify the way that buildings are designed, in addition to getting you to your floor faster.
Willy Wonka’s preferred mode of transport has now become a reality with a new kind of elevator that uses linear motors. Linear motors are similar to those in maglev trains and HyperLoop, designed to whiz its cabins through shafts. The elevator will be able to move people up, down, left, or right.
ThyssenKrup, a German engineering firm, first announced the idea of a maglev elevator way back in the year 2014. Now, after three years, in a dedicated elevator experimentation tower in Rottweil, Germany, it has performed its first public test of the technology.
See -in the video above- the elevator known as Multi, does not use a cable at all. Instead of the cable, it runs on rails that act as linear motors. It does so use magnetic fields to accelerate cabins along their length. When a cabin stops at a floor, those rails rotate to move off to the left or right rather than continuing up or down only.
ThyssenKrup’s vision is “a system of several such shafts placed next to each other, so software might plan routes that take cabins between shafts and around congestion, saving the time of the people”.
The linear motor technology could help side-step a major issue facing skyscrapers today. According to Wired UK regular cable designs can only rise about 1,600 feet in only one continuous stretch, so in tall or high buildings there has to be a range of lift shafts installed to get people to the top. Multi could solve that problem, that could free up space and also allow architects designing up buildings in different shapes and styles.
OVG Real Estate, a German developer, has already taken the plunge and will be installing the system in its forthcoming East Side Tower building in Berlin. But — honestly, there had to be a big “but” here—it is unlikely many buildings will be kitted out with these kinds of elevators in the future. That is because Multi will cost as much as five times more than a standard lift system, apparently. And, very sadly, golden tickets do not stretch very far in the world of real estate.
