At the 2019 SpaceX Hyperloop Pod competition, the student team from Germany's TU Munich achieved a top speed of 463 kmph (288 mph) on its prototype pod over a 1.2-kilometer (0.75 mile) test track.
TU Munich's team won the competition this year, although the pod disintegrated shortly after it broke the speed record, but not before it managed to finish the event. However, the team confirmed that the pod did not explode but rather lost "some parts" along the way.
The interest in hyperloop has grown exponentially over the years, with several startups creating hyperloop projects across the world. Hyperloop One and Hyperloop Transportation Technologies are among the most prominent of those startups.
Nonetheless, hyperloop is not without its share of detractors. Though hyperloop does look promising on paper with a theoretically possible speed of 1,200 kmph (760 mph), the recorded top speeds of pods to-date are a fraction of that. And this apart, hurtling at several hundred miles per hour within a closed vacuum tube might sound frightening to prospective passengers, because a freak accident would mean almost certain death.
Though Musk's initial idea was to envision a system that could be cost-effective in comparison to CAHSR, there are more established transport systems across the world that are relatively cost-effective and also could move at high speeds. The maglev trains in China and Japan are an example. Those trains use magnetic levitation to nullify friction between the wheels and the rail, allowing them to cruise at up to 600 kph (373 mph) over long distances.
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