This Hyperloop Video Elon Musk Tweeted Might Make You Motion Sick

SpaceX held part two of its Hyperloop Pod Competition over the weekend to help further the development of a prototype high-speed pod for hyperloop transportation, a concept Elon Musk pioneered in 2013. It was the second round of competition held by the Tesla and SpaceX founder, the first round of the competition took place in January.

National and international teams traveled to the Hawthorne, California, to put their pods on the nearly-mile-long Hyperloop track at SpaceX headquarters. This competition though is not related to any Hyperloop companies, a distinction made clean on SpaceX’s competition website.

The only criteria the teams were judged on was speed, the team that created the pod that could go the fastest on a track without crashing won. The winning team from the Technical University of Munich, called WARR, won for their pod that reached a peak speed of 324 kilometers per hour, or 201 miles per hour.

WARR is a team of 30 students who study everything from physics to computer studies and economics among other topics. Second place went to a team of students from Northeastern University and Memorial University of Newfoundland, the only qualifying team from North America. Third place went to team Swissloop from ETH Zurich.

Musk congratulated the winning team on Twitter and he also posted a video of the pod running that could definitely make viewers feel a bit motion sick. The video shows the tunnel and track from the view of the high-speed pod. Once it starts the sound of the pod going down the track increases in volume before it comes to a quick halt at the end of the track.

Musk was fielding questions from interested followers on Twitter. He said that in the .8 mile track it might be possible for a pod to travel at supersonic speeds, or about 800 miles per hour. But he noted that this would require very high “accel/decel,” and yes, there would be a sonic boom but it would be “a tiny one,” he tweeted. He also noted that the passenger version of the hyperloop would not have the intense strobe light-looking interior like the one in the video.

Additionally he said there would be no “uncomfortable acceleration” in a passenger version.

In July, Musk tweeted that he had received “verbal govt approval” for his company, The Boring Company, to build an underground hyperloop that would connect four cities on the East coast. The connections between New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington D.C. would take about 29 minutes he said.

Meanwhile the company Hyperloop One, which is not associated with Musk, has been working on its own pod and track. About a month ago the company successfully tested it passenger pod that traveled 192 mph down 500 meter DevLoop track in Nevada. The company is also working on creating the high-speed underground transportation.