If you've recently traveled across the US, you've probably experienced the downside of travel. Uncomfortable seating on planes, missed connections on trains, weather delays, and traffic are just a few ways that make getting from one place to another unbearable. If Elon Musk gets his way, we are just a few years away from eliminating many of the things that make continental travel so awful by introducing a brand new mode of transport, the Hyperloop.

1. Hyperloop aims to be a fifth mode of transport in addition to road, rail, sea and air. There hasn't been new viable mode of transportation capable of moving large groups of people introduced in over 100 years.

Read about the timeline for transportation technology here.

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2. Hyperloop moves faster than the speed of an airplane, but for the price of a bus ticket. It would take only 35 minutes to travel from San Francisco to Los Angeles on a Hyperloop. Hyperloop One, the company behind Hyperloop, sponsored a global challenge for teams to find the most feasible starting point for a worldwide Hyperloop system. Eleven American semifinalist teams will join 24 other global semifinalist teams to compete for the chance to make their dream into reality.

Read more about the Hyperloop challenge here.

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3. The Hyperloop functions by having an electric motor move a series of levitated pods through a low-pressure vacuum tube, accompanied by pneumatic suction. It's not the first time that this system has been introduced. The concept of a transportation system based on vacuum tubes and pneumatic suction is one that stretches back to Victorian Britain.

Read more about the origins of this technology here.

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4. It's energy-efficient, uses solar power and silently and safely glides with almost no turbulence.

Learn how the Hyperloop works here.

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5. Hyperloop is testing both in the US and in five other countries around the world. Hyperloop could be a reality in these countries by 2020.

Check out the Hyperloop One website here.