Here’s How The Lexus Hoverboard Is Able To Hover

Lexus released a short, 37-second teaser video showing off what it calls Slide, which appears to be a hoverboard. Many people are skeptical of the new product from Lexus. Just last year, Tony Hawk took part in a prank video that claimed a real, working hoverboard had been created. Some who watched the Lexus teaser video are wondering if history is repeating itself.

Fortunately, the newest Lexus product–which is unlikely to ever be sold to consumers–is apparently real. It’s limitations and the way that it works may disappoint those of you who want to take a ride around your neighborhood on the Lexus hoverboard.

Wired was naturally interested in how the hoverboard works and asked the Deputy Laboratory Director at FSU’s National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Eric Palm how the hoverboard is able to work. Palm explained that the hoverboard works using the power of magnets.

“Instead you have something called the Meissner effect, which essentially says that when you take a magnetic field near the superconductor, it induces current in that superconductor, and creates essentially an image magnetic field on the other side of the superconductor. You create current, but since it’s a superconductor, the currents don’t die away. So you don’t need oscillating magnetic fields. You can have a magnet that levitates above a superconductor or vice versa, a superconductor that levitates above a magnet.”

What that essentially means is that the futuristic hoverboard requires magnets to be underneath it. Without the magnets, there’s nothing for the superconductor in the board to repel off of. So, that means you wouldn’t be able to hover wherever you wanted to.

If you haven’t seen the Slide teaser video yet, you can see it below. In the video, some sort of smoke appears to be coming off of the hoverboard. As Wired went on to explain, the smoke was caused by liquid nitrogen. The liquid nitrogen is used to cool the superconductor inside of the board.

While it’s very unlikely that Slide will ever be sold to consumers, Lexus spokesperson Maurice Dumand, did give some bit of hope. As BGR reported Dumand said that marketing the hoverboard is a possibility.

“I would never say never that [Slide] wouldn’t be something we’d have for consumer use,”

Lexus isn’t quite the first to develop a working hoverboard. Awhile ago, a Kickstarter was created to help make the Hendo. The only real difference between the Hendo and the Lexus Slide is that rather than a superconductor, the Hendo uses an oscillating magnetic field to achieve its hovering ability.

[Photo via Lexus]