Journalists and guests look over tubes following a propulsion open-air test at Hyperloop One in North Las Vegas, Nevada, US, May 11, 2016.[Photo/Agencies]

"Today we demonstrated the full-scale propulsion system, which is actually a component that will go into the full scale system we build here in north Las Vegas this year," CEO Rob Lloyd told Xinhua, "This was actually a very major technical achievement."

During the about five seconds' test, "the test vehicle went from 0 to 60 mph in about one second, generating a force of about 2.5 Gs," Josh Giegel, the company's senior vice president of Engineering told Xinhua.

The company is competing to turn the Hyperloop concept, envisioned Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, into a reality. The idea is to put people into special pods that move at more than 1,126 km per hour inside a partially pressurized enclosed track.