Richard Branson satsar stort i Hyperloop: ”Banbrytande”

Virgin Hyperloop One, previously known as Hyperloop One or Hyperloop Technologies, is a company in Los Angeles, California, that is working to commercialize the Hyperloop for moving passengers and/or cargo at airline speeds at a fraction of the cost of air travel. The concept of Hyperloop transportation was introduced and named by Elon Musk in August 2013, although he is not involved with Hyperloop One. The Hyperloop uses a linear electric motor to accelerate and decelerate an electromagnetically levitated pod through a low-pressure tube. The vehicle will glide silently for miles at speeds up to 670 mph (1080km/h) with no turbulence. The system is designed to be entirely autonomous, quiet, direct-to-destination, and on-demand. Additionally, as Hyperloop is built on columns or tunneled underground, it eliminates the dangers of at-grade crossings and requires much smaller rights of way than high-speed rail or a highway. Hyperloop One has made substantive technical changes to Musk's initial proposal and chose not to pursue the San Francisco-to-Los Angeles route that Musk envisioned in his 2013 white paper. The company has raised $245 million and demonstrated a form of propulsion technology in May 2016 at its test site north of Las Vegas Hyperloop One has completed a 500m Development Loop (DevLoop) in North Las Vegas and just after midnight on May 12, 2017, the company held its first full-scale Hyperloop test, becoming the first company in the world to test a full-scale Hyperloop. The test combined Hyperloop components including vacuum, propulsion, levitation, sled, control systems, tube, and structures. Hyperloop One is currently developing passenger and cargo system routes in the United States, Canada, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the United Arab Emirates. It is also in early talks with Indian government to build one in India. Its publicly stated goal is to deliver a fully operational Hyperloop system by 2021.