The Hyperloop improvements aren’t slowing down, in fact, they’re quickly gaining speed.
Another Hyperloop pod competition took place from August 25 to 27 adjacent to SpaceX headquarters. The goal was simple—the pod that could go down the 0.77 mile-track (1.25 km) the fastest would be crowned champion.
On the final day of competition, three teams advanced to the finals. The winning pod clocked in at 201 mph (324 km/h), designed by the WARR team from the Technical University of Munich. The students secured a first place showing thanks to a lightweight pod at 176 pounds (80 kg), powered by a 50-kW motor.
Elon Musk shared his congratulations on Twitter.
As mentioned by Musk, this is the second time WARR took the top prize, winning the previous fastest Hyperloop pod competition back in January, reaching 58 mph.
Second place was earned by team Paradigm—a group of students from Northeastern University and Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador. Their pod reached 60 mph (101 km/h), using SpaceX’s pusher, lateral control, and air bearings.
ETH Zurich’s Swissloop team rounded out the top three, hitting 25 mph (40 km/h).
In a subsequent tweet, Musk expressed that “supersonic” speeds might be possible in the the Hyperloop test tube.
You can view the winning run in the video below. Before you hit play, a quick word of caution—the video is a bit jarring on the eyes.
