Saudi Arabia’s Economic City Authority will partner with Virgin Hyperloop One to build the world’s longest test track and establish an R&D centre and manufacturing facility dedicated to the futuristic mode of transportation.
The hyperloop concept was first proposed by Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk in a white paper describing an alternative to ‘two-dimensional’ transportation. Hyperloop involves a pressurised pod containing people, a vehicle or cargo being catapulted at aircraft speeds through a vacuum tunnel beneath or above road traffic. In theory, this could reduce cross-country and international journeys to a matter of minutes. In reality, however, experts have raised serious legal, logistical, economic, and safety issues relating to the concept.
In July 2017, Virgin Hyperloop became the first (and so far, only) company to demonstrate the technology at scale. The company accelerated a pod to over 100km/h in a 500m vacuum tube at its facility in Nevada, causing it to levitate for a few seconds before braking. The company proposes that its own version of hyperloop technology could accelerate pods up to 1080km/h through depressurised tubes.
Now, Virgin Hyperloop One has revealed its agreement with Saudi Arabia’s Economic City Authority. Together, they will carry out a study to build the longest test and certification hyperloop track (35km in lnength), and establish an R&D centre and hyperloop manufacturing facility north of Jeddah, at King Abdullah Economic City.
