We expect to have the 3-kilometer test track completed by 2021 or 2119, whichever comes first

Not sure how I missed this piece in the National Interest on potential security issues with the hyperloop. The reporting is a bit thin in spots, but it generally does a good job and it's almost the only coverage one of the most important aspects of the story has received.

This part, however... not so much, though my problem is more with the genre than with this article.

“We’re aiming for a city to city Hyperloop system, not within twenty years, not within ten years, but just within four years,” said Tim Houter, CEO of Hardt Global Mobility, at a TNW conference in Amsterdam.

Houter’s startup is developing a Hyperloop system with support from the Technical University of Delft, Dutch railway company Nederlandse Spoorwegen, and multinational construction company BAM. It is one of many Hyperloop projects presently underway.

This was always a bad joke, another example of treating the most absurd of claims as if they were serious proposals from credible people. Elsewhere Houter talked about connecting Paris and Amsterdam, 500 km apart requiring a thousand miles of tube. As far as I can tell, two of the four years in, here's what they've got.

‘Fully operational’ in this case means that the system – vacuum steel tube and guiding tracks, passenger pod, magnetic levitation and propulsion system and switching between tracks – can work in a real size environment. The next step will be a 3-kilometer long near-vacuum test tunnel, in which the actual high speeds can be obtained.

There are not "many hyperloop projects underway." There are two or three that might reach some functional or abortive stage or at best achieve tourist attraction status in places like Dubai. All the rest of the plans you hear about are either the pitches of con men or the ravings of cranks or some mix thereof.