America’s First Full-Scale Hyperloop Test Is Happening in Las Vegas

Hyperloop One plans to run the world's first full-size hyperloop test in Las Vegas in the early months of 2017. The full test will take place at Apex Industrial Park in North Las Vegas, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported this week.

Hyperloop's promise of 1,100-kilometers-per-hour travel is shaping up to be one of the biggest possibilities for travel innovation this year. Several companies, including Hyperloop One*, are setting their sights on establishing rail systems in Dubai, Russia and the US.

Few partial tests of the hyperloop vacuum rail line have been done so far. Hyperloop One ran a test in May using just the rail and the sled that connects to the passenger or cargo pod. But this test will be the full gamut, including the iconic vacuum tube, that will propel a prototype about 500 meters down a track with magnetic levitation, the Review-Journal reported.

"It will levitate, catch the right speed and slow down," Nick Earle, the company's senior vice president of global field operations told the Review-Journal. "Then what we'll do, is over the next few months extend that into a few kilometers."

Hyperloop One has also set up tests in Dubai, and private space company Space X is hosting a hyperloop pod contest to push engineers to build the best pod possible for this burgeoning technology. The first set of the finals for that competition will be in late January in Southern California.

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Editor's Note: This story originally referred to Hyperloop One as Elon Musk's Hyperloop One. While the Musk introduced the concept of the hyperloop, Hyperloop One is an independent startup.