Hyperloop One marks successful test in Nevada

Written by Mischa Wanek-Libman, editor
image description
Hyperloop One team assembling the propulsion test sled to the test track.
Joshua Caldwell/Hyperloop One

Hyperloop One, formerly Hyperloop Technologies, officially changed its name to coincide with the company's successful propulsion open-air test of the high-speed transportation concept.

The North Las Vegas test lasted about 12 seconds, but that was long enough for the company to declare the success a “historic milestone” that Hyperloop One says will be the “first of many full-scale tests….as the company reinvents transportation to eliminate the barriers of time and distance.”

Hyperloop One is participating in privately-funded feasibility studies to examine the economic and social benefits of hyperloop routes in Finland and Sweden. Hyperloop One is partnering with FS Links Ab, a company based in the Åland Islands in the heart of the Baltic region, to develop the technical, commercial and policy case for a strategic link between Stockholm and Helsinki. The company is also participating in a feasibility study with Arcturan Sustainable Cargo of Los Angeles to determine how Hyperloop One can streamline the movement of containers from the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles to reduce congestion and pollution. The company has recently joined with the founders of Cargo Sous Terrain in Switzerland to investigate how Hyperloop One can help create a completely tunneled cargo transport and logistics system throughout Switzerland.

“The overwhelming response we’ve had already confirms what we’ve always known, that Hyperloop One is at the forefront of a movement to solve one of the planet’s most pressing problems,” said Hyperloop One Co-Founder and Executive Chairman Shervin Pishevar. “The brightest minds are coming together at the right time to eliminate the distances and borders that separate economies and cultures.”

The concept of a hyperloop was born from Elon Musk, who envisioned a way for people and goods to move over land at speeds traveled by airplanes through low pressure tubes that ride on an air cushion. Musk, of Tesla and SpaceX fame, is currently holding a competition for university teams and independent engineering teams to design the best hyperloop pod. Interest in the concept has launched private companies to pursue the separate hyperloop efforts, including Hyperloop One. Hyperloop One is also sponsoring a separate hyperloop-focused competition.

Hyperloop One has also developed strategic partnerships transportation, engineering, operations, architecture, construction, passenger and freight economics, station design and tunneling experts. Hyperloop One partners include AECOM, which is building the test track for Musk’s hyperloop pod competition, Amberg Group, ARUP, Bjarke Ingel Group, Deutsche Bahn Engineering and Consulting, KPMG and SYSTRA.

While Hyperloop One has tapped the expertise of companies with distinguished rail portfolios and track is visible in the test, a fully-developed hyperloop will not have traditional rail infrastructure elements.

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Hyperloop One's video of its propulsion open air test in Nevada May 11, 2016
Hyperloop One