Virgin Hyperloop One has welcomed the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia to a test facility in the Mojave Desert, showing off a specially branded passenger pod as the county looks to accelerate its efforts to get the futuristic transport system up and running.
His Royal Highness Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, along with other Saudi government officials, paid a visit to the Virgin Galactic test site in California, where CEO Richard Branson was on hand to show off the company's latest vehicle.
Dubbed the Vision 2030 Hyperloop Pod, the capsule appears to be the same as the prototype the company has been putting through its paces at its test track outside Las Vegas. It does have some fresh stickers and logos on it, however, denoting Saudi Arabia's plan to build a thriving economy by the end of the next decade.
"We're look forward to advancing the relationship between KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) and Virgin Hyperloop One while we develop innovative transport technologies like hyperloop, accelerating Vision 2030 objectives to transform the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from a technology consumer to a technology innovator," said His Royal Highness Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz. "Hyperloop is the catalyst to enable all fourth generation technologies to flourish in the Kingdom while creating a vibrant society and thriving economy through visionary cities and high-tech clusters."
Virgin Hyperloop One has previously flagged a network spanning the Gulf region connecting metropolises such as Kuwait City, Jedda in Saudi Arabia and Muscat in Oman. According to the company, a hyperloop system could cut the ten hour-plus trip between Riyadh and Jedda to 76 minutes.
The video below shows the Vision 2030 pod flying through a tube in testing.
Source: Virgin Hyperloop One