Not a joke, not a hoax — Lexus actually built an actual hoverboard. As in Back To The Future II hoverboard. Just in time for 2015.
Let me say that again: this hoverboard is REAL. There’s no photographic trickery, no green-screening, no CGI or digital compositing. It really floats.
Here’s how they did it…
And THAT is engineering.
Yeah, there’s some sleight-of-hand involved (the tracks limit your path) and some great expense (liquid nitrogen, superconductors, etc.), but it WORKS. And that, friends, is actually INCREDIBLE, since the last hoverboard was a hoax and nobody thought that they could make a real one, ever.
Then they did.
“As our legendary Takumi craftsmen say ‘the difficult takes time; the impossible just takes a little longer’.”
Finally!!
And it’s important to remember how technology advances. There’s more computing power in your smartphone than the gear aboard Apollo 11. The first airplanes were barely more than gliders with attitude, and now air travel is commonplace.
Should be interesting to see how this progresses…
This is amazing. Even with the caveats.