While it isn’t quite a flying car, one highly-anticipated vision of 2015 predicted 30 years ago in ‘Back to the Future’ seems to be just around the corner: Lexus has announced that it managed to build a functional hoverboard.
That’s right: a skateboard that carries the rider above the
ground.
The board isn’t up for sale yet, but this is still amazing news
for anyone disappointed by the present day being a far cry from
the 2015 visited by Marty McFly in the 1985 classic ‘Back to the
Future’, which famously featured hoverboards in an iconic scene.
The device is billed as the “first real, rideable
hoverboard” on the Lexus website and is branded under the name SLIDE. Indeed,
a video demonstrates it sliding through the air like a floating
skateboard, although a rider is conspicuously absent.
The gravity-defying board is made possible with magnetic
levitation, using nitrogen cooled superconductors, according to
the website. It is designed to utilize materials familiar to
users of Lexus products, such as those that the car brand’s
interiors are often built with, including bamboo.
“When technology, design, and imagination come together,
amazing things can be achieved. Presenting SLIDE,” Lexus
said in a tweet.
The promotional video shows the board working on pavement, rather
than just on metal tracks like previous attempts at creating a
hoverboard.
READ MORE: #1 skateboarder Tony Hawk test-rides
first real hoverboard (VIDEO)
The technological principles behind this board already have
serious commercial applications. The L0 series of maglev train
set a rail speed record of 375 mph (603 km/h) in April.
Advances in such technology should give those who are who want to
see a flying car reason to rejoice.
“It’s very confidential information but we have been studying
the flying car in our most advanced R&D area,” Hiroyoshi
Yoshiki, a managing officer in Toyota’s Technical Administration
Group, told Bloomberg. A “flying car means the
car is just a little bit away from the road, so it doesn’t have
any friction or resistance from the road.”