German team’s pod wins SpaceX Hyperloop competition with top speed of 324 kph

The WARR Hyperloop pod from the Technical University of Munich, Germany, waits to make its run at SpaceX's Hyperloop Pod Competition II in Hawthorne, California, US, August 27, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake

A team from the Technical University of Munich in Germany won a competition hosted by SpaceX on Sunday to design the fastest pod for a proposed future transportation system of giant vacuum tubes known as the Hyperloop.

The WARR (pronounced: VAR) Hyperloop team's pod traveled down the mile-long SpaceX Hyperloop test track at 324 kilometers per hour (201 miles per hour).

Hyperloop pod run by team WARR pic.twitter.com/ntaMsoxkZE

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 28, 2017

"That was an amazing job," SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk told the team.

Congratulations to WARR team from Tech Univ Munich for winning 2nd @Hyperloop competition! Peak speed of 324 km/h, which is over 200 mph!!

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 28, 2017

The Hyperloop transportation system was originally conceived by Musk, who envisioned a high speed underground transport system that would shoot passengers in enclosed capsules through low-pressure steel tubes at up to 800 mph (1,288 kph), cutting the journey time between San Francisco and Los Angeles to under half an hour.

By traveling in vacuum tubes on magnetic cushions, Hyperloop trains would avoid being slowed down by air pressure or the friction of wheels on rails, making them faster and cheaper to operate, supporters say. A number of startups have begun to develop the technology, despite concerns about the cost and practicality.

Sunday's competition was the second hosted by SpaceX at its track near its Hawthorne, California, headquarters. Three teams advanced to the final stage of the competition and sent their pods down the Hyperloop tunnel.

Paradigm Hyperloop, an international team from Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts and Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada used air-based levitation for their pod. Team member Ben Lippolis said that was Musk's original intention when he released his open-source Hyperloop design plans.

"A lot of teams have decided to go with magnetic levitation systems—they're much more well known and currently used in high speed applications. We decided to pursue an air-based levitation system, primarily because it was the original idea that Elon introduced when he introduced the Hyperloop concept in 2013," Lippolis said.

The Paradigm pod hit a top speed of 101 kilometers per hour (62 miles per hour).

Swissloop, a team of students from ETH Zurich, built a pod propelled by compressed air.

"We have the cold gas thruster, that's a little rocket nozzle and a pressure tank with 150 bar and we expel something like nitrogen out of the back and it moves our pod forward," said the team's head of engineering Daniel Kaufmann.

Musk announced at the end of the competition that SpaceX would hold a third competition in 2018. — Reuters