In late June, Lexus released a short teaser revealing that they had a Hoverboard prototype in the works. Now a month later, the final product is here. The good news, the board does in fact hover. The bad? It's an elaborate marketing gimmick that will probably never hit store shelves.
A new video shot in Barcelona, Spain showcases professional skater Ross McGouran taking the board for a spin around a skate park. The clip shows him bombing down ramps, popping ollies, and even skating over water. It is definitely impressive, until you realize that the skate park's surface has metal underneath it.
Like most Hover centered gimmicks that go viral on social media, the Lexus board makes use of magnets to achieve lift off. If you think you can be make like Marty McFly and take the board out for a ride on the street, you're going to be disappointed.
Where Lexus' effort differs from other prototypes is its use of liquid nitrogen. The Verge has a detailed overview of how the thing works:
"Here's the breakdown: the hoverboard is packed with ceramic tiles (the superconductors, composed of yttrium, barium, copper, and oxygen), which are cooled down to around -180 degrees Celsius using liquid nitrogen. In order to achieve levitation, the board must be resting on a set of magnets (i.e. the track), and planks of wood are placed under the board to determine its levitation height (the more wood placed, the higher it'll hover - with a maximum of 4cm)."
The nitrogen is the reason why smoke billows out from the contraption throughout the whole test. To learn more about the Hover Board and the work that went into it, check out this documentary Lexus made on its development.
