Startup Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) has been quite busy signing deals to explore the potential of high-speed transport routes all around the world, but has little in the way of functioning prototypes and test tracks to show for it. That seems about to change, with the company welcoming the tubes that will make up its first test track in Toulouse, France.
Hyperloop Transportation Technologies plans to hold a public unveiling of the Toulouse facility sometime later in 2018.
While there are a number startups vying to build the Hyperloop, a transport system that would see passenger and cargo pods shuttled through near-vacuum tubes at around the speed of sound, HTT and competitor Virgin Hyperloop One are the two generating the most buzz.
For the latter, that has come through building a test track and firing its full-scale prototypes through the tube at increasingly faster speeds. But for HTT, that has mostly meant making agreements with governments from US states to South Korea, from India to Slovakia, to study the feasibility of a Hyperloop system, with little tangible progress to show for itself (save for some flashy renderings and promo videos).
Virgin Hyperloop One has been making inroads in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for a little while, having already presented its vision for a route connecting cities across the Middle East, including a 12-minute link between Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
Back in 2015, the company announced plans to build a passenger track in California, although that is yet to materialise. The new track planned for Toulouse does seem to be the real deal, however, with images and video shared by HTT showing a truck carting pieces of tube into the facility.
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About the author
Nick was born outside of Melbourne, Australia, with a general curiosity that has drawn him to some distant (and very cold) places. Somewhere between enduring a winter in the Canadian Rockies and trekking through Chilean Patagonia, he graduated from university and pursued a career in journalism. Having worked for publications such as The Santiago Times and The Conversation, he now writes for New Atlas from Melbourne, excited by tech and all forms of innovation, the city's bizarre weather and curried egg sandwiches.
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