Image: The Boring Company As well as building more efficient digging machines, the Boring Company also offered a line of caps and more unusually flame throwers, both of which sold out rapidly after they were released. In May, the Boring Company won a $48.6m contract to design and build the city of Las Vegas' planned loop of underground tunnels for moving people in autonomous electric vehicles. The tunnel is expected to be operational by the end of the year. What is Loop? The Boring Company hopes that one use for these tunnels, as well as Hyperloops, will be Loop. This is a high-speed underground public transportation system which sees passengers carried on autonomous electric 'skates' travelling at 125 to 150 miles per hour. Electric skates will carry between eight and 16 passengers or a single passenger vehicle. Passengers (and vehicles) would enter the pods at street level and then elevators would drop them down to the level of the Loop to continue the journey underground, bypassing street traffic (with pedestrians and cyclists getting priority over cars). The company is currently working on an initial test tunnel in Hawthorne (near the SpaceX and the Boring Company HQ) and has submitted plans for a 6.5-mile proof-of-process tunnel which would run within the City of Los Angeles and Culver City. The company said that unlike a subway, there is no practical upper limit to the number of stations that can be built along the tunnel route, as stations can be as small as a single parking space because the service is accessed via lifts. Each Loop 'station' is made up of a bank of elevators to transport the skates to and from ground level. "Since stations require such a small footprint, they can be easily integrated in busy city-centers, residential communities, or any location along the tunnel route that can accommodate a single parking space," the company said. It has published a map showing a potential set of routes for the service. What is the Hyperloop Pod Competition? Musk's SpaceX has its own Hyperloop test track at its headquarters in Hawthorne, California -- about one mile long and with a six-foot outer diameter. In order to accelerate the development of functional prototypes and encourage student innovation, SpaceX announced the Hyperloop Pod Competition in 2015, which challenges university teams to design and build the best transport pod, judged by different criteria each time. In 2018, the focus was the maximum speed for a self-propelled pod on the test track, or as the competition puts it: "Fastest time without crashing wins!". In 2019 it was judged on maximum speed with successful deceleration. What is Virgin Hyperloop One? Virgin Hyperloop One is one of the leading contenders attempting to create a commercially viable Hyperloop system. It was founded in June 2014 and has over 300 staff. It has raised $295m with the aim of building an operational system by 2021. The company currently has projects underway in Missouri, Texas, Colorado, North Carolina, the Midwest, India, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. Virgin Hyperloop One's DevLoop in North Las Vegas. Image: Virgin Hyperloop One In February, the company announced plans for the Indian state of Maharashtra to build a Hyperloop between Pune and Mumbai beginning with an operational demonstration track. The project will start with a six-month feasibility study looking at the route, environmental impact, the economic and commercial aspects of the route, the regulatory framework, and cost and funding model recommendations. Assuming all goes well, an operational demonstration track will be built between two points on the route two to three years from the signing of the agreement and serve as a platform for testing. The company said the construction of the full Pune-Mumbai route -- a 25-minute journey -- would take place in five to seven years. It added the high-capacity passenger and cargo Hyperloop route could eventually see 150 million passenger trips annually. "I believe Virgin Hyperloop One could have the same impact upon India in the 21st century as trains did in the 20th century," said Sir Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin group. The company is also working on a feasibility study into a Hyperloop route linking Kansas City, Columbia, and St Louis running along the I-70 in Missouri, and is looking at high-level cost estimate and funding model recommendations. The company has a 500 meter-long DevLoop, which has a diameter of 3.3m and is located 30 minutes from Las Vegas in the Nevada desert. In December, the company said it had completed its third phase of testing, achieving test speeds of 387 kilometers per hour. "The tests were conducted in a tube depressurized down to the equivalent air pressure experienced at 200,000 feet above sea level. A Virgin Hyperloop One pod quickly lifts above the track using magnetic levitation and glides at airline speeds for long distances due to ultra-low aerodynamic drag," the company said. It has identified 11 potential routes in the US, from the short -- a Boston-Somerset-Providence route of just 64 miles -- to the epic -- the Cheyenne-Houston route which would run 1,152 miles across four states, potentially reducing to 1 hour and 45 minutes a journey that currently takes 17 hours by car or truck. The company has also identified nine routes across Europe, potentially connecting over 75 million people in 44 cities, and spanning 5,000 kilometers. Image: Virgin Hyperloop One In June 2019, the Indian project took a step forward with the government of Maharashtra giving Hyperloop the green light and preparing to start the public procurement process. This project will be a partnership between the DP World-Virgin Hyperloop One consortia and the state government, with DP World expected to invest $500m to complete the first phase of the project which will certify the new technology for passenger operations. In July, Virgin Hyperloop One announced a development partnership with Saudi Arabia's Economic City Authority (ECA) to conduct a study to build a 35-kilometer test and certification Hyperloop track -- the longest so far -- as well as a research and development center and Hyperloop manufacturing facility north of Jeddah. In the future, traveling from Riyadh to Jeddah would take 76 minutes (instead of over 10 hours) using Hyperloop technologies, the company said. What is Hyperloop Transportation Technologies? See also