Musk's pipe dream is over: Hyperloop One shuts down

Hyperloop One, the futurist transportation company (in case you forgot) that promised to whisk passengers and cargo in vacuum-sealed tubes at jet speeds from city to city, is officially over – but this time, it's for real. According to Bloomberg, the much-hyped, long-beleaguered company will officially close its doors on Dec 31.

Elon Musk put forth his original idea in an "alpha paper" back in 2013, which theorized that aerodynamic pods filled with passengers or cargo could be whisked, Jetsons-style, through tubes at up to 760 mph to and from cities. He described it as a "fifth mode of transportation," with a dream scenario being Los Angeles to San Francisco and New York to DC in 30 minutes, ultimately transforming our lives and work.

For the utopian dream, Musk's test tunnel got turned into a parking lot, and no full-scale hyperloops exist in the world as of today. Musk's The Boring Company is still digging tunnels in Las Vegas, but not for futuristic travel – rather, it's for human-driven Teslas, traveling at 35 mph to and from convention centres.