Lexus has built a real hoverboard that lets riders 'float on air'

Beautiful mist falls out of the side of the hoverboard, which apparently uses magnets to stay in the air

Lexus has shown off a real, beautifully-designed hoverboard that people can actually ride.

Apparently using high-powered magnets to float just off the ground, the new technology called Slide lets people hover it slightly off the ground as they skate around.

“There’s no friction underneath you at all,” says professional skateboarder Ross McGouran in the video. “I’m forgetting what I’m actually doing… it actually is floating on air”.

In the video, ice spews out of the bottom of the board. That seems to point to the fact that the board is being kept up by using “quantum levitation” — which uses high-powered magnets to bend the magnetic fields and keep things in place — the mist comes from liquid nitrogen that is used to cool those insides down.

If that is how the board works, then it means that it will only be able to be used on a metal floor. That will keep it from working on traditional wooden skateparks, or on water as in Back To The Future.

Hoverboards have been claimed to have been made in the past. But they’ve usually been a combination of disappointing and oversold, looking like science projects that are only half-finished.

But Lexus’s hoverboard appears to be beautifully designed, on the outside as well as the technology that’s in it. It has a bamboo top, with thick carbon fiber on the bottom.

The company has teased its hoverboard before. But the new video marks the first time that it has actually been seen to be real, apparently confirming that the original film wasn’t computer generated or a hoax, but an actual, working piece of technology.

The company said that it will be bringing more updates “on the progress of this extraordinary project” in the coming weeks.