Hyperloop test tube is being built near Munich: up to 1000 km/h fast

Hans Christian Dirscherl

A Hyperloop test track is currently being built in the southeast of Munich, as reported by Bayerischer Rundfunk. At some point people will roar through the tube at 1000 km/h.

The location of the first Bavarian Hyperloop test track will be Ottobrunn. There, after five years of planning, a team from the Technical University of Munich finally wants to implement the tube project. The Hyperloop is to be built on a kind of parking lot right near the offices where the team conducts research. The first preliminary work is already underway and the test track should be completed by the end of 2022.

But you shouldn’t imagine a kilometer-long tube underneath it. Because this first tube is to be just 24 meters long and made of concrete. A vacuum is then created in the hermetically sealed tube, so that the transport capsule can glide forward, magnetically driven, without air resistance. With breathtaking speed. The experiments are scheduled to start in 2023. During the first test drives, however, there will only be objects in the capsules.

And what is all this for?

Hyperloop pods would be significantly faster than trains. As a means of transport, the Hyperloop could give traffic a whole new boost. Some calculation examples at an assumed Hyperloop speed of 1000 km/h:

Munich – Berlin: around 34 minutes

Berlin – Paris: around 1 hour

Berlin – Brussels: around 42 minutes

But it will be many years before people actually drive Hyperloop capsules in regular operation.

The Munich Hyperloop team is by no means a blank slate; on the contrary, it has already won many competitions:

463 km/h: Team from the Technical University of Munich wins Elon Musk’s Hyperloop competition again

Record at 467 km/h: Munich wins Elon Musk’s Hyperloop competition

Hyperloop from Munich reaches 324 km/h