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Elon Musk has just revealed that his Hyperloop plans are finally going ahead, at least in pilot form.
The SpaceX and Tesla founder says he’s going to build his first ‘test track’, with Texas tipped as the likely location.
What the heck is a Hyperloop, we hear you ask? It’s Musk’s vision of the future of transport, whereby us people-folk are shuttled along in tubes at speeds upwards of 700 miles per hour.
It was pitched by the real-life Tony Stark some years ago, but was dismissed by most people as a sci-fi wet dream.
The Futurama-esque transport system will be available for testing ‘for companies and student teams to test out their pods’, which means we’re not looking at a public rollout just yet.
Excitingly however, Musk says he wants to use the Hyperloop test track to hold pod racer competitions.
The original Hyperloop was pegged to run between San Francisco and Los Angeles, due to Musk wanting to travel between both the Tesla and SpaceX HQs.
It would work by running individuals in aluminium pods through long-distance tubes powered by vacuums.
It would be eco-friendly too, as Musk wants to coat the entire top of the tubing with solar panels to make it self-sufficient.
Unfortunately, the Hyperloop proper has cost estimates of around $10 billion, but a 400 mile trip in just 35 minutes doesn't sound like a bad commute at all.
Related: Elon Musk's 5 craziest tech ideas for the future
Musk also hit headlines yesterday after announcing he would be donating $10 million to fund research aimed at fending off robots of the future bent on world domination.
The tech magnate’s goal is to help find responsible ways to advance AI without the inevitable risk of one day bowing down to chip-powered overlords.
