Top contenders of last month’s Hyperloop Pod Competition will have to wait a little longer than expected to try out their designs in the real world.
The SpaceX-sponsored competition — won by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — will cumulate in testing on a one-mile test track constructed near SpaceX’s Hawthorne, California, headquarters. More than 20 chosen teams had been planning to test the human-size pods in June, but a recent letter from the company pushes the testing back by about two months.
(Image credit: MIT Hyperloop)“Our best guess for Competition Weekend is early-to-mid August, but this could move in either direction (based on construction and post-construction testing),” SpaceX explained in the letter, obtained by Tech Insider.
Surely, teams won’t mind the extra time to work on their functional hyperloop pods. MIT’s, for example, is 550 pounds of aluminum, carbon fiber and polycarbonate, according to WIRED, and relies on magnets to “float” through the track. During testing, teams will be responsible for transporting a human-sized dummy, intact, through the test track.
The SpaceX-sponsored contest is just one of three efforts underway to create a hyperloop. Hyperloop Technologies has already started construction on a half-mile test track in Nevada, and Hyperloop Transportation Technologies recently won permits to build a track in central California.
Do you think the competition will yield a viable hyperloop system? Comment below or tweet @MNetKatie.
