Skip to main content

First full-scale Hyperloop test track ‘planned for 2016’

According to website The Verge, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) has secured land for the first full-scale Hyperloop, planned for a 2016 launch in the California model town of Quay Valley. Building off Elon Musk's freely available designs, the crowdfunded company has marked out a five-mile stretch of Quay Valley adjacent to California's Interstate 5 freeway as a place where the innovative transportation system can be deployed. If successful, it would be the first full-size implementation of Musk'
March 2, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
RSSAccording to website The Verge, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) has secured land for the first full-scale Hyperloop, planned for a 2016 launch in the California model town of Quay Valley.

Building off Elon Musk's freely available designs, the crowdfunded company has marked out a five-mile stretch of Quay Valley adjacent to California's Interstate 5 freeway as a place where the innovative transportation system can be deployed. If successful, it would be the first full-size implementation of Musk's ideas for a mass-transit system which could propel capsules carrying humans at high speed through a series of low pressure tubes, published in August 2013.

"This installation will allow us to demonstrate all systems on a full scale and immediately begin generating revenues for our shareholders through actual operations," CEO Dirk Ahlborn said in a statement.

Musk is already building his own Hyperloop test track in Texas, but HTT says Musk's track is a scaled-down model, allowing for easier testing of the physics involved. HTT's track will be designed for human passengers, testing the passenger systems, but will come with other limitations. With only five miles of track, the craft will top out at just 200mph rather than the 760mph predicted in Musk's initial documents.

"It's not about speed," Ahlborn said. "There are a lot of other things that need to be optimised."

HTT will be moving towards a public offering near the end of 2015 in order to reach its US$100 million funding goal. They Hyperloop is expected to be up and running between 2019 and 2025.

Related Content

  • Autonomous vehicles, the pros and cons
    November 21, 2013
    Driver interface and human factors could provide the biggest obstacles to autonomous vehicles as Jon Masters discovers.
  • Major New York transit sign order for Daktronics
    November 9, 2015
    Daktronics is to supply the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) New York City Transit with 630 digital rail platform displays, to be installed by the July 2017. The multi-coloured LED displays, part of the subway system's Public Address Customer Information System (PACIS), will feature next train arrival and destination information as well as graphical information. A text to speech function aids visually impaired transit riders with clear and easy to access messaging. According to Daktronics,
  • Work to begin on North Virginia highway improvements to ease congestion
    August 2, 2016
    Work will begin this summer on the first major improvements to US Interstate 66 inside the Capital Beltway, Virginia, in 15 years. The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) project is part of a comprehensive initiative to transform the I-66 corridor, giving commuters and other travellers a variety of fast and reliable choices for getting to and from work. Toll revenues will fund multimodal improvements, giving commuters expanded options for travel. To jumpstart the process, the Commonwealth Transp
  • Kapsch ‘opens the way’ to interoperability
    July 30, 2013
    Richard Turnock, chief technology officer of Kapsch TrafficCom North America explains what advantages its newly-opened TDM protocol can offer as a US-wide standard for tolling interoperability. The electronic tolling industry across the United States is evolving. Historically it was characterised by clusters of interoperability where a motorist may be able to use the same transponder across a large area, such as the 15-State E-ZPass system, or be confined to a single State system. Now, however, the industry