Here's a breakdown of how revolutionary the Hyperloop could be for traveling between cities

HTTA rendering of a Hyperloop in Los Angeles.Wouldn't it be great to be able to get from Los Angeles to San Francisco in a half hour for only $30?

If the Hyperloop comes to fruition, that may become a reality. 

The Hyperloop, first proposed by Elon Musk - yes, the Elon Musk behind Tesla, SpaceX, and PayPal - is a mode of transportation that works by shooting pods full of people through vacuum sealed tubes at speeds of more than 500 miles per hour.

You can think of it like a huge version of the pneumatic tubes you may have seen at a drive-through of a bank.

Musk isn't actually working on building one - he's already the CEO of both Tesla and SpaceX - but made the plans public so other companies could test the concept. 

One of those companies is Hyperloop Transportation Technologies. On Thursday, the Los Angeles-based company announced that it would start construction on a test track in May 2016 with the goal of transporting people by 2018.

There are many challenges any company building a Hyperloop has to overcome - technological issues, regulatory requirements, and land-use issues - and we're still years and years away from a Hyperloop network that would connect. 

But that didn't stop HTT from releasing a video that depicts how much time a Hyperloop would save someone getting from her home in Los Angeles to San Francisco. 

Check it out:

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