The crowdfunded Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) struck a deal with India to develop a 27-mile Hyperloop route between the cities of Amaravati and Vijayawada.
The brainchild of Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Hyperloop is a proposed method of high-speed transportation that shoots a magnetic levitation pod full of people through a low-pressure transit tube at up to 760 miles per hour. In this case, it would shorten a 70-minute trip down to just six minutes.
Andhra Pradesh Economic Development Board in India and HTT signed a memorandum of understanding, giving the Hyperloop project the flexibility to look at potential routes for a system. After it’s chosen a place, which is scheduled to take six months, HTT will begin construction. If all goes well, the company could start building as early as March of next year.
HTT says its Hyperloop will bring 2,500 jobs, establish Amaravati as a tech hub, and improve the standard of living in the area, according to a press release. It’s not clear who exactly will pay for the Hyperloop, but the release does say it’ll be funded “primarily from private investors.”
The Hyperloop company previously teamed up with government officials in South Korea to build a system that could send someone from Seoul to Busan in 20 minutes.
The futuristic concept has been on the tip of everyone’s tongue for the past few months. HTT rival Hyperloop One recently achieved record-breaking speeds using a commercial passenger pod, and Elon Musk just held a Hyperloop competition where students from Munich Technical University shot a pod down SpaceX’s tunnel at 201 miles per hour. If progress continues at this rate, it won’t be long before we’re traveling city to city in a matter of minutes.
H/T TechCrunch
