Elon Musk's Tesla branded Hyperloop pod hit a speed of 220 mph (355 kph) during its test run at the SpaceX Hyperloop track in Hawthorne, California. This broke the 201 mph record set by students of the Technical University of Munich during the Hyperloop Pod Competition earlier this week.
Musk shared the news via Instagram. "We took the SpaceX/Tesla Hyperloop pusher pod for a spin by itself a few days ago to see what it could do when not pushing student pods (some need a push to get going, e.g. passive maglev). Got up to 355 km/h (220 mph)," the innovator said.
The new record of his Tesla pod is still far away from Musk's dream of supersonic travel. However, he will continue to work on the Hyperloop to improve the test pod's speed. "Maybe able get past 500 km/h (about half speed of sound) next month with a few tweaks or maybe tiny pieces," his Instagram post continued.
Earlier this week, Musk posted on Twitter about the possibility of supersonic travel using the Hyperloop. "Might be possible to go supersonic in our test Hyperloop tube, even though it's only 0.8 miles long. Very high accel/decel needed," he said.
In humorous fashion, the inventor clarified that in the future, safety and comfort considerations would be implemented in order to avoid the spilling of passengers' drinks. "Btw, high accel only needed because tube is short. For passenger transport, this can be spread over 20+ miles, so no spilt drinks," he added in a comment.
Musk first publicly mentioned his concept of the Hyperloop in 2012. The technology is comprised of a sealed tube through which a transportation pod may travel in near vacuum, which is free of air resistance.
WARR Hyperloop, the team of students from the Technical University of Munich won SpaceX's Hyperloop Pod Competition, beating their competition with a lightweight, carbon fiber pod.
