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

  • Sales of microelectric vehicles will be boosted by 85 per cent by 2013
    May 29, 2012
    Greener agendas, emission-based taxation, parking charge exemptions, and mass-produced electric vehicles are all working together to increase the sales of microelectric vehicles to 0’118,000 units by 2017 within the North American market new analysis from Frost & Sullivan predicts. This represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 39.30 per cent between 2010 and 2017. By 2013, the total count of microelectric vehicles in North America is likely to increase to 150 types, with the introduction of 34 new
  • Unmanned vehicles ‘to transform transportation within a few years’
    March 10, 2015
    According to new analysis from Frost and Sullivan, advances in sensor fusion technologies with high imaging capabilities to enhance manoeuvrability are quickening the development of unmanned vehicles. The resulting increase in the use of unmanned vehicles will eventually alter the dynamics of the transportation industry. The report, Innovations in Unmanned Vehicles–Land, Air, and Sea, finds that high-quality image and navigation sensors such as light detection and ranging systems, radar, and advanced global
  • Mitsubishi consortium receives letter of conditional acceptance for Doha Metro
    February 23, 2015
    A consortium of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Mitsubishi Corporation; Hitachi, The Kinki Sharyo and Thales has received a Letter of Conditional Acceptance from the Qatar Railways Company (Qatar Rail) for a systems package for the Doha Metro, the first metro system to be constructed in the State of Qatar. It is said to be one of the world’s largest projects for a single metro system. Construction is scheduled for completion by October 2019. Qatar Rail is the owner and manager of Qatar’s rail network and respo
  • Professional training key to the future of ITS
    May 21, 2012
    A substantial portfolio of resources is available and expanding, to help employers and professionals build essential skills for current and future needs – the ITS Professional Capacity Building Program. Pete Goldin reports. The US Department of Transportation (USDOT) views ITS as key to the future of transportation, as is evident from the department’s ITS Professional Capacity Building (PCB) program. This is a further manifestation of USDOT’s commitment to ITS. The PCB program provides anyone in the transpo