Reaching speeds of up to 60 km/h (37 mph) at the Railway Technical Research Institute the ML100 was a project of showing that the technology works. Things have quickly changed when the new 7 km long test track in Miyazaki has been built. The MLU001 model reached a top speed of 400.8 km/h (249 mph) in 1987 and kept slowly progressing with the development of modern maglev trains.

The next breakthrough came with the construction of the 42.8 km (26.6 miles) long Yamanashi maglev test line. The MLX01 broke the speed record at the time with 531 km/h (330 mph) in 1997. Nearly two decades and a completely new vehicle, the 0-Series had to be developed to achieve the next huge milestone. In 2015 this new maglev train set the world speed record for all trains with the top speed of 603 km/h (375 mph).