Elon Musk’s Hyperloop Pod Sets Record by Hitting 220 mph on SpaceX Test Track

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Recently, the students of team WARR set a new speed record, hitting 201 miles per hour at the Hyperloop Pod Competition.

Their record didn’t hold up long however, as Elon Musk’s Tesla-branded Hyperloop pod reached 220 mph earlier this week, taking place on the same .8-mile-long SpaceX test track.

While impressive, neither pod is close to the hypersonic speeds Musk hopes to achieve with the Hyperloop, although he strongly believes he can “get past 500 km/h (about half speed of sound) next month with a few tweaks or maybe tiny pieces,” as noted in the Instagram post below.

We took the SpaceX/Tesla Hyperloop pusher pod for a spin by itself a few days ago to see what it could do when not pushing student pods (some need a push to get going, e.g. passive maglev). Got up to 355 km/h (220 mph) before things started ?. Kind of like racing with a tugboat. Maybe able get past 500 km/h (about half speed of sound) next month with a few tweaks or maybe tiny pieces …

A post shared by Elon Musk (@elonmusk) on Aug 30, 2017 at 10:27pm PDT

Marshall Smith

Technology, engineering, and design enthusiast.