Elon Musk’s company SpaceX is hosting the first-ever Hyperloop competition for elaborating a new and efficient mass ground-based transportation system to beat traffic.

Even if the entrepreneur had announced that the digging would start within a month, a tweet sent on Friday reveals that plans are beginning tonight to try and ease the problem of traffic in one of the world’s largest cities.

Image credit: Ecell.in
Image credit: Ecell.in

The Hyperloop companies, which reportedly are not held by Musk, are holding talks with Russia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and the United Arab Emirates to start building the tunnels in said countries.

Traffic? Elon Musk will dig a tunnel

Various teams of engineering students and professionals are gathered at SpaceX’s headquarters near LAX to compete in the first Hyperloop contest to determine which pod is the safest, cheapest, and most efficient to incorporate on a large scale for this new transportation system.

Some suggest that the reason to build tunnels on Earth is not to ease traffic, but for Elon Musk to learn more about the transportation system that he plans on building on Mars. Back in 2013, Musk revealed the design for the Hyperloop, a transportation system that would be cheaper than airline travel and the standard subway.

Apparently, the solution for achieving high velocities in public transit would be building a tube under the ground “that contains a special environment.” The Hyperloop will use an electric fan on the frontal section of the transport pod, transferring high-pressure air from the front towards the rear of the vehicle. Musk compared it to a pod located in the pressurized part of a syringe, relieving pressure.

“Both for trip comfort and safety, it would be best to travel at high subsonic speeds for a 350-mile journey. For much longer journeys, such as LA to NY, it would be worth exploring super high speeds and this is probably technically feasible, but, as mentioned above, I believe the economics would probably favor a supersonic plane,” stated Musk according to International Business Times.

The co-founder of Hyperloop One, Brogan BamBrogan, who left the company on 2016 due to a series of lawsuits appears to have launched a new startup known as Arrivo, The Arrival Company. BamBrogan had started Hyperloop One with Uber investor Shervin Pishevar. Reportedly, he left the company due to “harassments,” although Hyperloop One launched its series of countersuits.

Now, BamBrogan alongside David Pendergast, Knut Sauer, and William Mulholland, who were the people who Hyperloop One countersued, are now owners of the title “co-founder of Arrivo” at LinkedIn.

Since Musk dropped his plans of spearheading Hyperloop, private companies are now looking forward to making the system a reality. The only link that Musk holds with Hyperloop is SpaceX’s contest to test new technologies that could make the concept a reality.

The finalists for the competition should be announced no later than Sunday, January 30, at SpaceX’s main headquarters.

Source: USA Today