(ECNS) -- Hyperloop One, a Los Angeles company working to develop futuristic transportation technology, aims to deliver a fully operational Hyperloop system as early as 2019 and has also set up a research office in China.
It is among the cutting-edge concepts developed by Elon Musk, who introduced his vision for a high-speed train in a partially pressurized tube in 2013. The idea is to put people in pods that move at more than 700 miles an hour inside a partially pressurized, enclosed track. The pods are propelled by magnetic levitation and whisked through the center of the tube on a cushion of air.
The Hyperloop will lead to a revolution in transportation and become the "fifth mode of transport", Bibop Gresta, the company's cofounder and COO, told China's National Business Daily while attending a forum in Chengdu City, Sichuan Province.
Gresta said current tests show the Hyperloop can run faster than its publicly stated speed to reach 1,200 kilometers an hour, but the key is efficiency.
He added that the company is in contacts with the Chinese government to invite Chinese to visit its 5-mile test facility in California.
Hyperloop One has established a research center in Beijing and is in the process of recruiting more experts, said Gresta, who is also looking at opportunities in southwestern China.
The company is in talks with investment organizations in China and India, he added without giving more details.
