Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX has just announced that his Hyperloop transport system has managed to propel one of its pods at a record-breaking 355km/h (220mph), following a test on a specially designed track outside Los Angeles.

A Hyperloop is a proposed mode of travel for both passenger and freight transportation, the idea for which was first floated by musk in 2013. Musk’s vision for his transportation system includes a series of vacuum tubes through which pods or carriages are levitated with the ultimate goal of reaching 1000km/h – aka the speed of sound. Following the success of this week’s tests, Musk has announced, via Instagram, that the pods ‘Maybe able get past 500 km/h (about half the speed of sound) next month with a few tweaks or maybe tiny pieces.’

Musk claims that his Hyperloop will be able to carry people from San Francisco to Los Angeles in around half an hour, which would require the speed of around 1220km/h. To put that into context, this would mean that we could get from the most northern point of Scotland to Land’s End in under an hour: putting Britain’s proposed HS2 to shame.

What is arguably most exciting about the Hyperloop concept is that it is an open-sourced project meaning that members of the public are encouraged to take ideas from Musk’s outline and develop them further. So if you’re feeling inspired, get in touch.