Can this be real? Presenting SLIDE, a real hoverboard created by a collaboration between Lexus and leading experts in superconductive technology. Not quite the hoverboard Marty McFly uses in “Back to the Future Part II,” but cool nonetheless. The Lexus hoverboard works by using magnetic levitation created by superconductors. A cryostat, which is a device to maintain very low temperatures, cools liquid nitrogen in the hoverboard and that keeps the superconductors cold. When that happens, the superconductors create electrical currents that can repel magnets, allowing the board to float and move without friction.
Operated like a skateboard, the Slide doesn’t require batteries or a power supply but does need magnets on a rail embedded in the ground to work.
Wrapped in a design that is uniquely Lexus, the Hoverboard features the familiar Lexus spindle grille signature shape and uses the same materials found in the luxury car brand, from the high tech to natural bamboo.
The device is not for sale, but will be tested in Barcelona over the coming weeks. Follow the journey on Twitter using the #LexusHover as new images and video will be released weekly.
Here is a teaser video released by Lexus today:
Lexus isn’t the first to showcase a real-life hoverboard. Canadian inventor Catalin Alexandru Duru set a Guinness World Records title for Farthest Flight by a Hoverboard when he traveled a total distance of 905 feet 2 inches on a propeller-based hoverboard across a lake in Quebec, Canada.