Canadian start-up looking to raise £35m for project to rival Elon Musk’s Hyperloop
A Canadian startup has entered the futuristic transportation race by issuing a call to arms to raise $50m (£35m) to develop its own hyperloop technology.
Bloomberg reported that TransPod is looking to raise funds to develop its own Hyperloop, a project first proposed by Elon Musk’s Tesla and SpaceX. Hyperloop envisages passengers propelled in pods through low pressure tubes at speeds of up to 745 mph.
TransPod, a Toronto-based company, told Bloomberg it was planning to build a half-size first version of the project in France by next year.
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TransPod said its version would be cheaper than that suggested by Musk, at around €20m (£17.5m) per kilometre.
TransPod is entering a crowded field of competition, with Musk announcing last year that his Hyperloop had received “verbal” government approval in the US. Musk said his tunnelling company, the Boring Company, had been given verbal government approval to build a Hyperloop on America’s West Coast, an underground tunnel that would transport passengers between New York and Washington DC in just 29 minutes. It would run via Philadelphia and Baltimore, according to Musk.
Richard Branson’s Virgin Hyperloop One is also hot on Musk’s heels. Yesterday it announced it was working with Saudi Arabia to bring the Vision 2030 Hyperloop Pod to the kingdom, which is on a modernising mission.
Hyperloop One said the speed of its trains were two to three times faster than high-speed rail and would reduce journey times across the kingdom. The proposed route would go from Riyadh to Jeddah and would reduce the current 10-hour journey to 76 minutes.
Read more: Richard Branson says India is planning to build a Hyperloop