It has been widely suggested that Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter will mean he will focus less on his other companies, such as electric vehicle maker Tesla and aerospace company SpaceX.
However, amid the Twitter sale drama, there has been an update from Boring Company, one of the lesser known of Mr Musk's many ventures. The tunnelling company is working on a high-speed hyperloop transport system and announced on Tuesday that it is nearing a major milestone.
“Hyperloop testing at full-scale begins later this year,” Boring Company tweeted.
Mr Musk tweeted just hours earlier that Boring would attempt to build a working hyperloop, adding that “from a known physics standpoint, this is the fastest possible way of getting from one city centre to another for distances less than 2,000 miles. Starship is faster for longer journeys".
“Underground tunnels are immune to surface weather conditions (subways are a good example), so it wouldn’t matter to Hyperloop if a hurricane was raging on the surface. You wouldn’t even notice," he added.
Hyperloop has been mooted for years
Yes, it has. Mr Musk first published his white paper in 2013 outlining a high-speed transportation system he called the hyperloop.
The system sees magnetic levitation pods carrying people at up to 1,200 kilometres per hour — nearly three times faster than a conventional high-speed rail — in tubes either above or below ground, with plans to build a hyperloop capable of ferrying passengers between New York and Washington in 29 minutes.
After sharing his specifications in 2013, he said he didn’t plan to execute “because I must remain focused on SpaceX and Tesla".
In 2017, his hyperloop project completed its second phase of testing in Nevada, though progress then fizzled out.
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