The First Public Hyperloop Test in Las Vegas Lasted Just 5 Seconds

The recently renamed Hyperloop One completed its first full-scale demonstration in Nevada today. The demo only lasted five seconds, but it was a five-second view into the (potential) future of transportation.

On Tuesday night, Hyperloop One announced $80 million in funding and enough progress to make co-founder Brogan BamBrogan exuberantly exclaim that we can reimagine transportation because “it’s the 21st Century, yo!” Elon Musk’s 2013 whitepaper about sending people from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 30 minutes is closer to reality than ever.

There was no livestream of today’s event though. The company posted to Twitter than it will “be doing that for our ‘Kitty Hawk’ moment later this year” and that a test video will be posted later today.

Of course, this first test isn’t the 750-mph, vomit-inducing final product. The track was only a half mile long, the motor didn’t carry a pod, it only traveled 300 mph, and it needed a bed of sand to slam into to make a complete stop before flying off the rails.

Still, it’s a lot further than anyone else has gotten making a real-life hyperloop — notably ahead of their main competitor Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, which recently signed an agreement with the Slovakian government and said that the “main cost is the tube.”

Check out all five glorious seconds of Hyperloop One’s first run in the two videos below.