Having initially taken a back seat on his own Hyperloop idea, Elon Musk is now well and truly getting stuck in.
Last week the Tesla and SpaceX entrepreneur showed off a test run of the winning entry in SpaceX’s Hyperloop competition.
The winning pod reached a very impressive 201 mph. Well now Musk has taken Tesla/SpaceX’s own prototype out for a test run and well, he’s already set a record.
Musk’s pod reached an impressive 355 km/h or 220 mph. What’s perhaps even more impressive is that it managed it within the 0.8 miles of SpaceX’s Hyperloop test track.
While these models aren’t full-scale, this is remarkable progress in such a short period of time.
It’s not clear yet what Musk wants to use Hyperloop for, whether it’s for transporting people or people in cars, but what we do know is that now he has his mind set on it, things will start to happen.
Rival companies like Hyperloop One have already started building full-scale test tracks and in July it unveiled what the hyperloop vehicle might look like.
While Hyperloop One has announced potential tracks running throughout multiple countries the company has yet to carry out a single major test run with a full-scale prototype.
The hope is that by using its new 500m long Devloop in the Nevada desert the company can start making full progress towards its ambitious plan of having a functioning product by 2019.