Fancy a 30-minute trip from Amsterdam to Paris? It may just be possible in the near future.

A team at TU Delft has won Tesla founder, Elon Musk’s prestigious Space-X Hyperloop contest in Hawthorne, Los Angeles.

The contest took place on Monday, January 30, 2017. Participating universities had to demonstrate how fast their futuristic vehicle could travel within a vacuumed tunnel. 

The Hyperloop

The Hyperloop was invented by Space-X, Elon Musk’s aerospace company, with an aim to make future travel faster and more efficient.

Based on the idea of Pneumatic Tube Transport (PTT), also known as capsule pipelines; a system that propels cylindrical containers through networks of tubes, the Hyperloop works in a similar manner.

It creates a low air pressure within the tube so that there is very little resistance. This then allows the speed to go up to as much as 1.200 kilometres per hour. 

TU Delft: the winners

Whilst TU Delft was competing amongst 28 other institutions, including big names like MIT, only five of the teams passed the necessary tests for safety and design. This left three to compete in the end across the two categories of speed and total experience. 

Whilst the German WARR from the Technical University of Munich was the fastest overall, TU Delft came first when averaging out the scores across both categories, taking into consideration security and efficiency of the prototype. 

Innovation for the future

Racing in a capsule of 1,2 kilometres, the TU Delft futuristic vehicle managed to attain 90 kilometres per hour. When calculated for a longer distance, this could reach up to thousands of kilometres per hour.

There are already several companies set up to investigate where the vehicle can be put into practice. The founders of the TU Delft team have already announced plans of establishing their own company, whilst continuing to work on the Hyperloop design for the upcoming Space-X match in 2018.