One of the startups developing Elon Musk's Hyperloop technology is finally opening up about its plans to build a functioning Hyperloop test track in downtown Los Angeles.
Hyperloop Technologies, not to be confused with another LA-based startup Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, named its CEO on Wednesday and said that the company plans to open its test track next year.
Rob Lloyd, the former president of Cisco, will now be leading the company. Formerly the company was under the leadership of Brogan Bambrogan who served as the interim CEO.
The company aims to complete its Hyperloop test track next year, but Lloyd said that it will be a few more years before the company has one that will travel hundreds of miles between cities.
“Three years from now I believe that we will be designing and constructing the first two or three production Hyperloop systems in the world. Five years from now we will be moving goods and people,” Lloyd said during an interview with CBS on Wednesday.
The Hyperloop is basically a transportation systems that connects two destinations via tube. Passengers and freight travel in the tube via pods that can reach speeds of more than 500 miles per hour.
Musk originally proposed the idea of a Hyperloop system between LA and San Francisco in a white paper published in 2013, but made his idea open source so that others could take up developing the technology.
While the concept might sound futuristic and a little far fetched, those working on the technology believe it is really just the next step in the evolution of travel.
“It feels like we are exactly at the beginning of building out the next big global network, except it will be a network for people and things, rather than for data,” Lloyd said during the interview.
“I think it's hard for people to believe because they are putting into context the transportation systems they have been relying on and have been frustrated with for the last 30 or 40 years,” he said.
Hyperloop Technologies, which has $10 million in seed money and expects another $80 million in second round funding, also announced on Wednesday that it was expanding its headquarters in downtown LA by adding three acres and 55,000 square feet of space.
The company currently has more than 50 full-time employees from a wide range of different backgrounds, including former engineers from Nasa and Musk’s SpaceX.
Check out a video the company published on YouTube below.
