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Construction on Musk's First Hyperloop Test Track Begins in Two Weeks

If 0 to 100 comes real quick - we’re hinting at rapper Drake’s big hit - while in a supercar, then you should wait to see how traveling through a Hyperloop tunnel feels like. Sure, civilians are still years away from taking a joyride, but the engineers who are building the first test track will get a grip on it sooner than you may think.
Hyperloop 1 photo
Photo: DeZeen
It wasn’t long ago that Hyperloop Technologies - the company making Elon Musk’s transportation device - released a video presentation of their facility. Sure, it looked much like a regular open-space office with a bunch of comps rolling “Hyperloop” screensavers while some engineers were explaining how much their upcoming project would... Well, it would make the world a better place.

At first, we were quite skeptical about their bold plans to put this thing into perspective, after all, they’re not the sole ones to give it a try. However, according to the company’s chief operating officer Bibop Gabriele Gresta, the wheels will soon start to spin. While showcasing the innovative test track at an event titled BaseStone Construct//Disrupt in London recently, he told Dezeen that their team was a couple of weeks away from starting construction.

“It is the closest thing to teletransportation. It will change humanity completely,” said Gresta, who added that work would begin on the $150 million test track in the next two to three weeks. As it was previously announced, the Hyperloop test track will be built on a five-mile stretch of Quay Valley - a future solar-powered city in Kings County, California - and will take 31 months to complete.

10 million passengers will use the test track

In total, they want to transport 10 million passengers throughout the duration of its testing process, with average speeds of 160 miles per hour. And that’s the smallest rate the computer-automated capsules will travel because they’ll have passengers on board.

However, while empty, these capsules will go eight miles per hour slower than the speed of sound (which is 768 mph by the way). Gresta was quite sure they would crush every record on the ground, which even for people that own a McLaren P1 sounds quite exciting.

A project that started from Elon Musk’s hypothetical solution to cheaper transportation between Los Angeles and San Francisco, the company’s chief operating officer believes that the first full Hyperloop system will not be built in America.

“Other countries are in a more advanced discussion phase, and they have the political will, the lack of infrastructure, a high density of population and less regulatory problems to make it happen,” he said, according to the source.

Regarding specs, the innovative transportation system was designed to be earthquake and weather resistant, with each pylon capable of supporting seven passenger Hyperloop tubes and one for security purposes. It is estimated that it will transport 3,400 passengers per hour, and 24 million people each year.
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