Virgin Hyperloop sends first human passengers up to 160kph

Richard Branson’s Virgin Hyperloop has just hit an important milestone, after testing its Hyperloop pod with two real life human passengers.

The test took place yesterday, at the company’s DevLoop test track in Las Vegas, Nevada. The first two passengers were Hyperloop’s chief technology officer and co-founder Josh Giegel, and head of passenger experiences Sara Luchian.

They strapped themselves into their seats, and then were transferred to an airlock. The pod they were in was then magnetically accelerated to a cool 160-kilometres per hour down the length of the track.

This is a big achievement for the transportation company, which has ties to the UAE. It was founded in 2014, off the back of a technical briefing by Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Since then, Musk admitted that he had no time to develop the technology (because, he’s also trying to get to Mars) and so effectively allowed the technical vision to become open-source.

Richard Branson quickly jumped aboard the concept, and has since signed up some potential locations to host the first Hyperloop tracks and stations – the UAE is one of them, with a proposed station connecting Dubai to the capital Abu Dhabi.

Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, Chairman of Virgin Hyperloop and Group Chairman and CEO of DP World (which has made a multi-million dollar investment into the group) was watching live from Las Vegas.

“I had the true pleasure of seeing history made before my very eyes – to witness the first new mode of mass transportation in over 100 years come to life,” he said.

“I have always had tremendous faith in the team at Virgin Hyperloop to transform this technology into a safe system, and today we have done that. We are one step closer to ushering in a new era of ultra-fast, sustainable movement of people and goods.”

“DP World and Dubai are at the forefront of technological innovation in the transport and logistics industry. The world has been changing quickly and we wanted to be involved in the potential this mode of mass transportation presents, to connect markets and economies, keep trade flowing and help build the global economy’s next phase to accelerate growth”.

It’s a big step for an entirely new transportation technology, for sure – especially considering that the Hyperloop was a literal pipe dream just seven years ago.

Virgin Hyperloop says that the next stage is to continue testing the technology, with the aim of building a longer test track.

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