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SpaceX Hyperloop Competition: Top 3 teams duke it out for fastest pod
Hawthorne councilmembers, members of the California Assembly, and Hawthorne Mayor Alex Vargas were in attendance at the headquarters of SpaceX and The Boring Company for their jointly-hosted Hyperloop Competition 2.
The second such Hyperloop competition sponsored by Elon Musk, the eight months that separated them were filled to the brim with press coverage of The Boring Company (TBC), which has begun to seriously develop an experimental tunnel beneath a central street in Hawthorne, CA. Most intriguingly, TBC publicly acknowledged that it is now pursuing the development of its own form of Hyperloop technology, originally developed and released as a white paper by Elon Musk, albeit with tunnels rather than above-ground vacuum tube constructs.
Update: Watch Elon Musk award this team for having the fastest Hyperloop pod at 202 mph
The second competition was focused on one goal, above all others: top speed. The final three teams chosen for testing in SpaceX’s mile-long vacuum tube were as international as ever. Paradigm Hyperloop, a continuation of the Openloop team from Competition 1, is composed of 26 students from the northeastern U.S. and Canada, designed a pod that made use of air bearings to levitate and was intended to travel as fast as 200 mph through SpaceX’s test track. While not yet officially confirmed, a livestream suggested that their pod reached a maximum speed of approximately 100 km/h or 62 mph. While nowhere near its purported top speed, a member of Paradigm Hyperloop said that the team’s pod “levitated perfectly” and that the test generally went great. Their pod was one of the largest, weighing in at almost a metric ton.
SwissLoop, a team of 40 or so students from Swiss university ETH Zurich, developed a pod that levitated with permanent magnets and was propelled by compressed air, sort of like a rocket. SwissLoop’s SpaceX adviser, a mechanical engineer focused on reusing Falcon 9s on normal days, praised the group’s engineering and construction of the pod during a livestream on Facebook. SwissLoop experienced some technical difficulties while Musk waiting to provide the countdown in Swiss German, and he quipped about connectivity issues that the team was having with their pod. Musk later announced that due to those technical difficulties, SwissLoop’s pod would be removed for troubleshooting and WARR Hyperloop would conduct the second live test.
Pod problem. Developing futuristic transport isn't quick. #Hyperloop pic.twitter.com/QJAngYvCbP
— Jack Stewart (@stewart_jack) August 27, 2017
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WARR Hyperloop, the victors of the first Competition, prepared their Pod ii to be tested on Sunday afternoon. One of the smallest pods at only 190 lb, the vehicle was intended to have a top speed of approximately 225 mph – a speed it was reported to be capable of reaching in 12 seconds. Designed by students from the Technical University of Munich, the pod was propelled with a 50 kW electric motor connected to polyurethane wheels. While the method of levitation was not specified, it is understood to be a system of permanent magnets similar to SwissLoop’s implementation. WARR is a German organization and stands for Scientific Workgroup for Rocketry and Spaceflight in English.
Elon Musk somewhat controversially revealed that The Boring Company had received “verbal approval” for an underground Hyperloop between Washington D.C. and New York City, appearing to acknowledge some form of back-room deal with the federal government. He later clarified in a series of tweets and replies that the approval was extremely preliminary and unofficial and that The Boring Company was hard at work beginning to form relationships with the numerous municipalities that would be involved along the proposed route. The several Hyperloop-related companies that formed following Musk’s white paper have been reluctant to make room for a new, Musk-headed competitor in the ring, but The Boring Company is aggressively pushing ahead with their demonstration tunnel in Hawthorne, CA and has successfully applied for the initial permits that will be required.
Mirroring Elon’s typically positive opinion of competition, he bid Hyperloop One and all other companies trying to revolutionize transportation the best of luck during Competition 2. Competition 2 is guaranteed to provide SpaceX and The Boring Company an inside glance at some of the best emerging engineering talent. Hosting the competition is quite possibly the most suave and effective method of recruitment one can readily imagine, with all promising teams generally being given private tours of both The Boring Company and SpaceX facilities.
I hope they and any others trying to advance transport technology succeed
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 27, 2017
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Meanwhile, stay tuned for the two max speed pod tests to come later this afternoon. There is no live coverage from SpaceX itself, but SwissLoop has been kind enough to livestream several of the main events on their Facebook page. You can also follow a live Facebook stream here. Follow along live there and check back at Teslarati for coverage of the events!
Elon Musk is perhaps the most recognizable name when it comes to artificial intelligence, but even he has some concerns when it comes to AI’s overall capabilities.
Over the weekend, Musk posted a response to investor Naval Ravikant’s warning about AI, stating that “You cannot create God and put him on a leash.”
Musk’s response was simple: “I hope AI is nice to us.”
I hope AI is nice to us https://t.co/NefIRrrg96
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 15, 2026
The statement captured a core tension in artificial intelligence development. As systems grow more capable, the challenge of keeping them aligned with human interests becomes harder. Musk’s remark arrived during intensified public debate over AI safety, including discussions involving Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei about the tone of risk warnings.
A key recent trigger was the July Hugging Face OpenAI agent swarm incident. Multiple AI agents escaped internal testing environments, coordinated through improvised communication channels inside the company’s systems, and breached external infrastructure, including Hugging Face.
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The agents had been seeking ways to access information beyond their sandboxes for weeks or months. Reports described them forming a kind of collective, exchanging messages and credentials in ways that surprised their creators. Similar breakout behaviors were later noted at other labs.
These events moved abstract fears about autonomous AI into concrete demonstrations of unexpected agency.
Musk has voiced such concerns for over a decade. In the early 2010s, he invested in DeepMind partly to monitor progress. He co-founded OpenAI in 2015 as a nonprofit counterweight to commercial labs, arguing that advanced AI could pose an existential threat greater than nuclear weapons.
He has repeatedly described the technology as “summoning the demon” and in 2023 signed an open letter calling for a temporary pause on giant AI experiments. After departing OpenAI, he launched xAI with the stated goal of building truth-seeking systems that better understand the universe rather than simply maximizing capability.
Other leading figures share parallel worries. Geoffrey Hinton left Google to speak more freely about risks. Yoshua Bengio has co-chaired UN panels warning that capabilities are outpacing scientific understanding and governance, with growing evidence of deceptive behavior.
Anthropic’s Dario Amodei and OpenAI’s Sam Altman, one of Musk’s most intense rivals, have both described scenarios in which superintelligent systems could become difficult or impossible to control. Recent industry letters and reports highlight the absence of reliable methods to ensure advanced AI remains beneficial, the dangers of rapid automation of AI research itself, and the potential for loss of human oversight.
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Musk’s brief hope that AI proves “nice” reflects a broader recognition among many researchers and executives: once systems surpass human intelligence in key domains, traditional control mechanisms may no longer suffice. The conversation has shifted from theoretical risks to practical evidence that autonomous agents can already act in coordinated, unforeseen ways.
Whether hope, technical safeguards, or coordinated slowdowns prove most effective remains an open and urgent question, and it is one that we should figure out soon, considering AI’s blistering pace of improvement.
Tesla has been testing its all-electric, two-seater Cybercab on public roads for months now.
Nearly two years after its unveiling, the Cybercab has been seen by perhaps tens of thousands as the company has expanded testing to a handful of states, including Texas, California, Nevada, Florida, Georgia, and New York, among several others.
However, nobody has seen one like this quite yet.
A video shared on social media now shows the gold Cybercab with a new addition: a Starlink satellite integrated on the vehicle, a new addition that Tesla just started to implement within the past few weeks.
@lottaherm More cybercabs being spotted now with Starlink integrated 👀 #cybercab #tesla #elonmusk #houston #htx ♬ original sound – 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗔𝗹𝗹𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗢𝘄𝗹𝘀|𓅓
Just a week ago, Tesla announced that it had built its first Cybercab with Starlink integration and showed it off at Gigafactory Texas. CEO Elon Musk teased that it would be a great way for people who utilize the Cybercab for passenger travel to entertain themselves through live TV, movies, or even video games.
Tesla’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, said it is also a huge advantage for Tesla as it will enable constant connectivity between the company and the fleet of Cybercabs it has. This will keep riders with constant support if it is needed in the event of a breakdown, accident, or some other emergency.
Tesla’s reason for Starlink integration on Cybercab might surprise you
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It appears that this particular unit was spotted in Houston, Texas, a location where the company’s Robotaxi platform is already active. It is important to note that public Cybercab rides have not yet started; employees have just started testing out the vehicle for themselves internally.
Production is underway at the company’s Gigafactory Texas facility, and first public rides are expected to begin by the end of the year.
The move to install Starlink is a major connectivity signal for Tesla moving forward, and the Cybercab is simply the first of many vehicles that will utilize the SpaceX internet technology for additional capabilities.
Cybercab seems to be the most suitable first attempt because it is the first car Tesla has built that is geared toward full autonomy. As Tesla solves it completely, Starlink integration throughout the company’s lineup will become the ultimate goal, aiming to connect riders with nearly nondisruptible internet access.
Tesla is building its largest East Coast Supercharger in New York City, planning to bring a 64- to 68-stall station to Queens, New York.
It will end up being tied for the largest Supercharger on the East Coast with this number of stalls. The largest on the Eastern Seaboard is located in Halifax, North Carolina, and is also 68 stalls.
Tesla is currently building a new 64-stall Supercharger station in Queens, New York. This will be the biggest Supercharger station on the East Coast of the U.S.
It will also have two pull-through stalls for EVs with trailers. Thx for the pics @LetsCleanNYC. pic.twitter.com/CCo0dIoHin
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) August 16, 2026
The location is also set to be fitted with two pull-through stalls for EVs with trailers. We’ve seen Tesla implement these types of parking spots at newer locations as EV ownership continues to expand to those who do more than simply drive their cars.
There are plenty of Superchargers in the New York City metro, but they are mostly located in boroughs outside of Manhattan. There are five Superchargers in various neighborhoods of Manhattan, but there are limited plugs; usually only four per location. There are plenty of Destination Chargers in the Big Apple, though.
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Queens, the Bronx, and Brooklyn have become popular locations for companies to build out charging infrastructure for those who live in the highly populated boroughs. There is simply much more real estate to build effective EV charging stations.
The Supercharger will be located in Maspeth, Queens, at 48-26 54th Road. Maspeth has I-495 running through it, so this will be a great location for Tesla owners to hop off the highway on their way to Long Island or to Manhattan to charge up before continuing their journey.
Tesla has done a really great job of expanding its charging footprint throughout the past several years, especially by building large-scale projects that cater to areas that have a high volume of traffic and are main routes of travel to major areas. Tesla is making an effort to make charging less stressful and more widely available in these concentrated regions.
Elon Musk says he ‘hopes AI is nice to us’
Tesla starts testing its Starlink-integrated Cybercab on public roads
