A 420-meter white steel tube running along a railway line in the north of the Netherlands aims to chart a new era in the transport of people and goods.
This tube is the heart of the new European Hyperloop Center in Veendam, the Netherlands, which will be a testing ground over the next few years to develop an evolving technology.
The revolutionary hyperloop aims to reduce travel times.
It is designed to transport passengers and goods over medium and long distances, travels at speeds of around 700 km/h in a tube and is presented as a more flexible and faster mobility solution.
Inside the tubes there is a near-vacuum environment and the capsules use magnetic levitation and propulsion technology.
The hyperloop, "touted" by Elon Musk, is considered by its advocates to be much more efficient than short-haul flights, high-speed trains and freight trucks.
However, since Elon Musk unveiled the concept which, according to the entrepreneur, could transport passengers almost 645 kilometers between Los Angeles and San Francisco in 30 minutes, this technology has progressed at a much slower pace than expected.
"I hope that the first hyperloop route will be ready by 2030, perhaps five kilometers long, on which passengers will actually be transported," said the director of the European Hyperloop Center, Sascha Lamme.
"In fact, preparations are already being made for these routes, for example in Italy or India [where the vehicle had been suspended]," he added, quoted by the Associated Press (AP).
Lamme also invited skeptics to visit the space: "We have built the European Hyperloop Center and, from what we have built, we know that we can be competitive with high-speed rail transport."
The test center's tube is made up of 34 separate sections, most of them 2.5 meters in diameter. A vacuum pump in a steel container next to the tube sucks in air to reduce the internal pressure. This reduces drag and allows the capsules to travel at such high speeds.
A test capsule built by the Dutch hyperloop pioneer Hardt Hyperloop will next month take part in the first tests at the center, which is funded by private investment as well as contributions from the provincial government, the Dutch government and the European Commission.
In November 2020, two people made history by being the first to take part in the manned journey aboard the high-speed capsule. The test took place at the company's headquarters near Las Vegas.
The passengers traveled for 15 seconds on a 500-meter track. The capsule managed to reach 172 kilometers per hour - a much lower speed than the final goal, but nevertheless an important milestone for the company.
ZAP //
