Loopy idea: a 760mph tube link

An inventor has unveiled plans for a near-supersonic travel link from Los Angeles to San Francisco called the Hyperloop.

PayPal founder Elon Musk envisions using magnets and fans to shoot capsules floating on a cushion of air through a tube at 760mph. The 380-mile trip would take just 30 minutes.

He said the solar-powered scheme would cost about $6 billion (£4 billion).But Mr Musk, who developed the Tesla electric car and founded space travel company Space X, said he was currently too busy to develop the project himself.

In a paper outlining the Hyperloop proposal, he suggested the Hyperloop would be a faster, safer, less costly and more efficient mode of transport between Los Angeles and San Francisco than the high-speed train currently under development.

“Short of figuring out real teleportation, which would of course be awesome, the only option for superfast travel is to build a tube over or under the ground that contains a special environment,” he wrote. Capsules could depart as often as every 30 seconds and could also carry cars. Passengers seated in cabins inside the capsules would experience slightly more than the force of gravity, more like on a plane than on a roller coaster, he said.

Mr Musk said a demonstration model would take up to four years.