Virgin Hyperloop completes first passenger tests

News

Virgin Hyperloop - one of the companies working on the commercialisation of the hyperloop vacuum tube transport concept - has carried out its first passenger trials at a test site in the Nevada desert.

During the test run, two passengers – the company’s CTO Josh Giegel, and its director of passenger experience Sara Luchian – travelled at speeds of up to 172.8km/h in a specially developed pod aboard along the firm’s 500m long test site in Las Vegas.

The company’s technology uses electric propulsion and electromagnetic levitation to accelerate pods through a low pressure tube. It estimates that commercial hyperloop systems could be capable of top speeds of around 1080km/h.

Whilst the ultimate aim is produce vehicles with a capacity of up to 28 passengers, Giegel and Luchian made their maiden voyage on the small two seater demonstrator vehicle – the XP-2 – which was built to demonstrate the safety case for the system, and to test a state of the art control system able to detect “off-nominal states” and rapidly trigger appropriate emergency responses.

The testing campaign - which has also included over 400 unoccupied tests - is being overseen by the industry-recognised Independent Safety Assessor (ISA) Certifer.

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