A concept that could revolutionize transportation recently hit an important milestone.
Hyperloop One, a startup developing a novel vehicle essentially comprised of pressurized pods that use magnetically powered tracks to travel at breakneck speeds, revealed on Wednesday it performed a full successful systems test for a prototype back in May 2017.
Engineers conducted this trial on their private test track, known as the “DevLoop”, in the Nevada desert.
The team activated all of the system’s components, including its motor, vehicle suspension, and electromagnetic braking. Results demonstrated that the Hyperloop prototype could successfully operate as a single integrated unit in a vacuum.
The vehicle was able to coast above the first portion of track for 5.3 seconds and achieved nearly 2Gs of acceleration. It hit the Phase 1 target of 70mph.
“Hyperloop One has accomplished what no one has done before by successfully testing the first full scale Hyperloop system. By achieving full vacuum, we essentially invented our own sky in a tube, as if you’re flying at 200,000 feet in the air,” said Shervin Pishevar, co-founder and Executive Chairman of Hyperloop One, in a statement. For the first time in over 100 years, a new mode of transportation has been introduced. Hyperloop is real, and it’s here now.”
Next, the startup’s staff will perform a series of additional test runs at the DevLoop track in order to validate the performance of its components and software. To do this, they will launch one of these pods along a longer track with target speeds of 250 mph.
You can watch a video of the test run below.