Musk: next Hyperloop test will either end in new record speed or ‘shredded metal’

Elon Musk is no stranger to making bold claims on Twitter to drum up excitement. He’s tweeted about everything from the release of new Tesla cars, to SpaceX rocket launches, to the availability of a Boring Company Flamethrower.

But now Musk is Tweeting about his high-speed transportation company Hyperloop. You know the one – the vacuum tube, levitating pod, very Jetsons idea.

So far Hyperloop has fallen pretty far short of Musk’s promise of speeds of over 700 miles per hour, with the record being held by Virgin Hyperloop One at 240mph from a speed test in December 2017.

Riding on (some very fast) coat-tails

But that could all be about to change, if Musk manages to deliver on his promise. In a series of Tweets, Musk claims that an “upgraded SpaceX/Tesla Hyperloop pod speed test [will happen] soon”.

The company is trying to reach half the speed of sound and then brake again to stopping within about 1.2 kilometers.

In a second Tweet, Musk then jokes that it’s a “nutty idea” and “could easily end up being shredded metal” but that it’s “exciting either way”. You can see the tweets below:

It’s interesting to see Musk use the names of his other (successful) companies in the branding of Hyperloop. There’s been a question over Musk’s active involvement in the Hyperloop project, after he originally published his white paper, leaving the development of the project fairly open source.

It looked as though Hyperloop might sit under the Boring Company umbrella, but now it seems like the company might sit under the name of SpaceX, which to be fair, has been in the news recently for making things go fast.

According to Digital Trends, the machine that’s going to be used during this attempt is a “pusher” vehicle that was used to drive student pods without motors in last year’s annual Hyperloop contest.

When we have more info about the test we’ll let you know.

Via Digital Trends