Main Content

SpaceX held its second Hyperloop Pod design competition for student teams at the test track built near its headquarters today. The mile-long track saw three finalist teams battle it out for speed supremacy, including WARR Hyperloop from Germany, Switzerland’s Swissloop and Paradigm, a North American team with members from Northeastern and Memorial University in Newfoundland, Canada.

The winner was WARR, which was built by students at the Technical University of Munich, ran at a speed of 324 km/h, which is over 201 mph. That easily topped the next place team, and the WARR unit was the only to even attempt to reach its top speed during the runs.

The team earned the praise of SpaceX co-founder and CEO Elon Musk with the victory, who said that it was extremely impressive as a result from a student initiative. Musk ramped up the stakes immediately, however, saying that he believes with work it would be possible to get up to above 500 km/h even in the relatively short mile-long test track SpaceX currently has in place.

There will be more opportunities to compete, too – Musk also announced that as of today, SpaceX has decided to host the competition again next year, marking the third running of the pods. The competition itself is a volunteer effort but one by SpaceX (and, notably this year, The Boring Company) employees who volunteer their time on race day and also help mentor the students working on the pods, and prepare for the tests.”

Link to article