Hyperloop Transportation Technologies just started building its first passenger pod

Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) announced this morning that it's begun building the first full-scale passenger pods for its super-fast tube travel network. The company has agreements in place for a test track in California and the potential development of its system in Slovakia, Abu Dhabi and other countries — but this is the first real news of actual production for any part of its Hyperloop concept.

HTT launched in 2013 shortly after Elon Musk dreamed up the concept for the next-gen transportation system. After Musk released his open source plans for the Hyperloop concept the following year, HTT set a goal to develop the tech IRL within a decade.

The capsule is being built in partnership with Carbures, a Spanish engineering firm with ties to the aerospace industry. The design will be optimized for the previously announced passive magnetic levitation system for the yet-to-be-developed HTT loops.

HTT says its capsule will weigh in at 20 tons, and measure 30 meters (about 100 feet) long and 2.7 meters (almost 9 feet) wide. Each pod should be able to handle between 28 and 40 passengers at a time, depending on how it's configured. Once HTT's system is in place, the company claims each capsule should be able to handle up to 164,000 passengers a day.

The capsules are projected to be able to jet out of stations in 40 seconds and zoom through the loops at speeds of up to 760 mph, just short of the sound barrier at 767 mph.

There was no word in today's release about Vibranium, the Captain America-inspired material the company teased last year.

The capsules are in production now, with plans for a 2018 reveal at HTT's R&D headquarters in Toulouse, France. The company says in a release that the pods will then be used in a commercial system that is "soon to be announced from the ongoing negotiations and feasibility studies currently taking place around the world."

HTT isn't the only Hyperloop company working to bring the high-speed transportation concept to fruition: competitor Hyperloop One recently showed off the construction of its test tube in the Nevada desert following a demonstration of its propulsion system last year. One of the company's ousted founders, Brogan BamBrogan, started a new Hyperloop project called Arrivo last month.