A Virgin Hyperloop, the world’s first passenger ride on a super-high-speed levitating pod system, was completed and host the first human ride, Reuters has learned.
Virgin Hyperloop’s Sunday announcement on the key safety test for technology gives a hope that the modern levitating pod system will transform human and cargo transportation. The company has previously run over 400 tests without human passengers at the Nevada site.
According to the engineers, the system’s speeds of up to 172 km per hour at the company’s DevLoop test site in Las Vegas, Nevada. As Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, Chairman of Virgin Hyperloop, said, the historical test ride was really unbelievable. Here are figures as an illustration: passengers and cargo hurtle through vacuum tubes at 966 kph or faster.
The Los Angeles-based Hyperloop system uses magnetic levitation to allow near-silent travel. In other words, a journey between New York and Washington would take just half an hour.
The levitation pod system would be twice as fast as a commercial jet flight and four times faster than a high-speed train. Now, the company is planning to complete its safety certification by 2025.
The first Virgin Hyperloop’s human test comes a month after company picked the U.S. state of West Virginia to host a $500 million certification center and test track that will serve as a proving ground for its technology.
