Downtown L.A. warehouse is hyperloop headquarters

Downtown L.A. is in the loop – the hyperloop, that is.

A nondescript warehouse downtown is the incubator for a fledgling technology that proponents say has the power to whisk travelers between L.A. and San Francisco in about half an hour.

Hyperloop Technologies Inc. has leased the bulk of a 6,500-square-foot warehouse and is ramping up staffing there. That company and others housed in the building want to create a system that uses vacuum tubes to move passengers and freight at speeds of up to 750 miles an hour. Cargo, human and otherwise, would ride in pressurized capsules propelled along a cushion of air, or so the theory goes.

Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of SpaceX and the Tesla electric car company. Hyperloop Technologies is trying to raise $80 million to build a five-mile hyperloop test track. And it’s hiring. The company’s Web site lists opening ranging from office manager to aerodynamicist.