Elon Musk’s futuristic Hyperloop tube-based transit system is getting a lot closer to happening.
A company called Hyperloop Transportation Technologies says it’s ready to build a five-mile prototype track for the Hyperloop system first proposed by Musk in a 2013 paper. HTT plans to build the track in California’s Quay Valley for an estimated $100 million, according to CNBC.
The prototype Hyperloop track won’t have the distance or supersonic speeds Musk originally desired, though.
“It’s not a test track,” HTT CEO Dirk Ahlborn toldWired of the Hyperloop project. “Speed is not really what we want to test here.”
Hyperloop Transportation Technologies isn’t the only group working on a Hyperloop prototype: Musk himself tweeted last month he’s working on a test track “most likely in Texas.”
Will be building a Hyperloop test track for companies and student teams to test out their pods. Most likely in Texas.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 15, 2015
The Hyperloop is a theoretical system in which passenger-carrying vessels would blast through low-pressure tubes at ultra-high speeds with the help of induction motors and air compressors.