Hoverboard

Lexus Channels Marty McFly With Real-Life Hoverboard

While Lexus has created a working hoverboard, don’t expect to be going back to the future any time soon.

Lexus must have drawn inspiration from Marty McFly for their latest creation, a real, working hoverboard called “Slide” that floats an inch above the ground.

The hoverboard, which unfortunately does not live up to its Back to the Future 2 inspiration, was featured in the latest installment in Lexus’ Amazing in Motion video series, a marketing campaign launched by the company to show the artistic applications of its new technologies.

The video teases that “there is no such thing as impossible” as a man steps onto the bamboo-wrapped, luxuriously crafted, misting hoverboard.

The microsite is noticeably light on details. The video does not show anyone riding the hoverboard and includes few photos. Lexus, however, promises to release new videos and images weekly.

Lexus says that to “create the impossible” it uses “magnetic levitation” through “liquid nitrogen cooled superconductors and permanent magnets.”

While the hoverboard has long been associated with a distant, advanced Future, the Lexus hoverboard is using very real technology. Arx Pax, a magnetic field architecture technology company, recently created its own, working hoverboard which journalists have been allowed to ride.

However, the applications of the new hoverboard technology are considerably limited. Lexus confirmed to Gizmodo that the board only works on special metallic surfaces so you unfortunately won’t be flying this board over concrete. For now, it seems, Slide is just a clever marketing stunt.

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Matt Kelemen

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