A futuristic high-speed train travel pod that creators hope will one day zip passengers from New York to DC in just 30 minutes was unveiled in Manhattan on Friday.
The Virgin Hyperloop One, a roughly 20-foot vessel with seats inside, uses a revolutionary pressurized air system to hover above train tracks — and reaches speeds of nearly 600 mph, a rep for the project said.
“It’s propelled using electromagnetic propulsion; it actually lifts up on the tracks like it’s floating. And because it runs in a tube, where there’s almost zero aerodynamic drag, allows us to go as fast as a plane,” marketing director Ryan Kelly said at Rockefeller Center, where the device showcased.
The company may have a deal in the works to install the Hyperloop system between Mumbai and Pune in India, he said.
And the transportation technology will likely be up and running by 2029 in the US — with the Big Apple on its shortlist of launch cities.
“New York is obviously a global city, we came here for the sustainability aspect of this,” Kelly said. “We see big value in connecting cities like metro stops … New York to Washington would be great.”
The Jetsons-like pod has already had success at a testing center in Las Vegas, he said.
Elon Musk, famed founder of Tesla and SpaceX, first introduced the Hyperloop concept in 2013, according to Business Insider.
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