Google is engineering self-driving cars, so why can’t Lexus build Marty McFly’s favorite way to get around? The luxury carmaker released a video on Tuesday showing a hoverboard floating above the ground.
The short clip only features the actual hoverboard for a few seconds, with it floating just an inch or two above what seems to be a skatepark. Emblazoned with the Lexus logo, it billows smoke and a skateboarder teasingly directs a foot onto the board just as the video, via Mashable, ends.
Lexus has scant information on its site about the hoverboard, but there is some. They seem to be calling it the Slide, and describe it thus: “Wrapped in a design that is uniquely Lexus, the Hoverboard features the iconic Lexus spindle grille signature shape, using materials found in the luxury car brand, from the high tech to the natural bamboo.”
According to USA Today, the Slide does actually work, but in a controlled environment. There are magnets embedded in the concrete that sits below the hoverboard featured in the Lexus video. So, it’s not quite Back to the Future II, but we’re getting there.
This isn’t our first hoverboard tease; last year we saw Moby and Tony Hawk riding one in DTLA, though we’ve heard little about that concept (from a company called HUVr Corp.) since then.