Hyperloop: Crowd-Sourced Company Plans Test Track in California

— -- The first Hyperloop test track could be built as early as 2016 in California, moving Elon Musk's dream of a high-speed transportation system of tubes one step closer to becoming a reality.

Using Musk's free design plan, Hyperloop Test Technologies, a crowd-funded company not affiliated with the Tesla and SpaceX billionaire, said it plans to build a full-scale model on five miles of land in California's Quay Valley.

"This installation will allow us to demonstrate all systems on a full scale and immediately begin generating revenues for our shareholders through actual operations," Dirk Ahlborn, CEO of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, said in a statement to The Verge.

Musk first unveiled his futuristic idea in 2013, calling it "a cross between a Concord, a rail gun and an air hockey table." He published the 57-page design plan on both Tesla Motors' and SpaceX's blogs as a PDF available for download, allowing anyone to take the design and adopt it.

While Musk described a system that could carry humans at speeds as high as 760 mph, the California test track will likely only reach around 200 mph, Ahlborn told The Verge.

The Hyperloop is a large pneumatic tube, similar to the system used by some hospitals to transport documents, samples and medications in a more efficient manner. New York City also relied on a network of pneumatic tubes to transport mail during the first half of the 20th century.

Last month, Musk tweeted that he plans to build a Hyperloop test track "most likely in Texas" where student teams and companies can test out designs for possible Hyperloop pods.