Wikipedia
Hyperloop is a tradename and a registered trademark of the Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) for the high speed transportation of passengers and goods in tubes in which capsules are propelled by linear induction motors and air compressors.
Recently there has been a resurgence in interest in pneumatic tube transportation systems since being reintroduced, using updated technologies, by Elon Musk, incorporating reduced-pressure tubes in which pressurized capsules ride on an air cushion driven by linear induction motors and air compressors.
The outline of the original Hyperloop concept was made public by the release of a preliminary design document in August 2013, which included a notional route running from the Los Angeles region to the San Francisco Bay Area, paralleling the Interstate 5 corridor for most of its length. Preliminary analysis indicated that such a route might obtain an expected journey time of 35 minutes, meaning that passengers would traverse the route at an average speed of around , with a top speed of . Preliminary cost estimates for the LA–SF notional route were included in the white paper— for a passenger-only version, and for a somewhat larger-diameter version transporting passengers and vehicles —although transportation analysts doubted that the system could be constructed on that budget.
Hyperloop technology has been explicitly open-sourced by Musk and SpaceX, and others have been encouraged to take the ideas and further develop them. To that end, several companies have been formed, and dozens of interdisciplinary student-led teams are working to advance the technology.
Designs for test tracks and capsules are currently being developed, with construction of a full-scale prototype track scheduled to start in 2016. In addition, a subscale pod design competition on a very short, , test track was built in Nevada – the first tests of the scale model occurred in May 2016.