Elon Musk’s Hyperloop One project is finally moving forward after the company revealed it successfully tested a full prototype version at its test track in Nevada.
Hyperloop will soon work closely with the Dubai Roads and Transport Authority on a $50 million construction project between Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
According to Wired magazine, engineers successfully tested a magnetically levitating sled that shot through a tube in near-vacuum conditions, reaching 0-70 mph in just five seconds. Hyperloop One boasts that its vehicles will reach more than 700 mph when fully ready.
Musk’s recent tests checked braking, propulsion and the levitation and vacuum systems that enable the travel pods to fly through tubes with minimal friction and energy. The Hyperloop commercial system will become the fastest mode of transport in the world once it is in full operation.
“This is integrating all of the pieces,” Josh Giegel, Hyperloop One’s engineering chief said. “It’s the first phase of a test program that will get us to a production unit.”
The first full-scale Hyperloop model will be up and running by the beginning of 2018, the company claims. Construction has already begun in Toulouse, France and other locations around the world. Dubai, Abu Dhabi, California, Poland and Canada are set to follow suit later this year.
Each Hyperloop capsule will weigh 20 tons, measure 30m in length and 2.7 m in diameter. Capsules are expected to move at incredible speeds, sometimes reaching 760 mph per hour and will revolutionize the way we travel.
Hypeloop Reveals Pod Design
“Hyperloop One also revealed its design for the pod that will carry the people (or cargo). The pod, made of aluminum and carbon fiber, resembles a bus,” Wired writes.
Elon Musk originally claimed that Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) would launch in the United States in 2018, traveling between Greater Los Angeles and San Francisco.
However, Forbes writes that the first working model for the high-speed passenger capsule will be manufactured and tested in France, where the company’s research and development arm is situated.
The transport industry has been anticipating developments on this capsule since it was first announced in 2012. Critics claimed that the project was taking so long to come to fruition that many doubted it would happen at all. However, the firm’s latest news has put the travel concept back into the spotlight.
The company recently received an extra $80 million of investment to continue the project after money started to dry up. Hyperloop is one of three companies currently striving to achieve a completed hyperloop transport system. Elon Musk’s company is the highest profile and the furthest along the production line to completion of the project.
Hyperloop will soon work closely with the Dubai Roads and Transport Authority on a $50 million construction project between Dubai and Abu Dhabi, and will help transport cargo back and forth between the Arab states. Creators claim the concept will prove workable and that the project will happen. They believe that Hyperloop will revolutionize the way we travel.
It remains to be seen if Hyperloop One becomes a reality. But, if recent reports are anything to go by, it certainly has the potential to change the path of humanity and how we travel forever.
