Richard Branson’s Virgin Hyperloop has completed the world’s first passenger ride on a high-speed levitating pod system, a key safety test for technology it hopes will transform human and cargo transportation.
The Virgin Hyperloop executives, Josh Giegel, its chief technology officer, and Sara Luchian, the director of passenger experience, reached speeds of up to 107mph (172 km/h) at the company’s DevLoop test site in Las Vegas, Nevada, the company said on Sunday.
“I had the true pleasure of seeing history made before my very eyes,” said Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, the chairman of Virgin Hyperloop and the group chairman and chief executive of DP World.
The Los Angeles-based Hyperloop envisions a future where floating pods packed with passengers and cargo hurtle through vacuum tubes at 600mph (966 km/h) or faster.
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The company is working towards safety certification by 2025 and commercial operations by 2030, it has said.
See here for a beginning-of-the-year update, and here for some video. I guess it’s a good thing that we’re at a point where something can be physically tested, but moving two people at 107 MPH isn’t exactly groundbreaking – hell, that happens every day on parts of the interstate highway system. I want to believe in hyperloops despite the many reasons for skepticism, but I’m going to need more than this. I’ll leave it to you to read this evisceration of the Virgin One test, but in the meantime I suspect that the folks behind Texas Central are not quaking in their boots just yet.
Exactly right, the folks behind Texas Central are not quaking in their boots about hyperloop just yet.
They are too concerned about having no money, Abbott getting caught lying to the Japanese PM about having all the permits necessary to begin construction (they have none), the STB application (a years-long process in which they have not yet submitted their application), redesigning the Shinkansen to meet US crash standards, the SCOTX eminent domain case…
Just a few of their worries that are greater than hyperloop.
Seguay anyone? Yeah, I don’t remember this either.
David, what?