The year was 1989 and Marty McFly was seen travelling around in October 21, 2015 in ‘Back to the Future Part II’ with an invention that seems out of this world; a hoverboard. Basically a skateboard without its wheels, the hoverboard does what it says on the package but one thing that has kept people wondering is that it is already 2015, but we still have not seen one just yet.
And surprisingly of all the companies that exists in this world, the one that decided to have a go in making the hoverboard a reality is Lexus. They have been developing the technology for quite some time and had even posted numerous teasers in sharing their progress of making a real life functioning hoverboard. And after a long wait, the futuristic skateboard is finally here…
Developed over a course of 18 months, the hoverboard utilizes two “cryostats” which are basically reservoirs that store a superconducting material at -197 degrees through immersion in liquid nitrogen – explaining the ‘smoke’ you see coming out from the board.
It is almost hard to fathom that Lexus managed to do all this alone, which is why they collaborated with a team of German scientists from IFW Dresden and evico GmbH who are specialists in magnetic levitation technology. But before you get too excited and starting to find ways to own one, here is the big catch: you can’t.
First and foremost, it is not for sale. Secondly, to get the whole thing working, you need a specially designed skate park with a magnetic track hidden beneath the ground, which is what Lexus had built specifically for this stunt. A bummer? Probably is. But at least we know someone is working on something in turning science fiction into reality!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awAzM9kTvC0
