movies

The New Hoverboards Are Nothing Like the Ones in Back to the Future

Photo: Universal Studios

A company in California will have you believe that it has built a working hoverboard, just like the ones in Back to the Future II. After more than a dozen tries, Arx Pax says its 18th prototype, the Hendo Hoverboard, is the real deal — and it can be yours for a mere $10,000. There is, as the board’s breathless media coverage admits, only one catch: Since it’s powered by a magnetic field, the board can only hover over surfaces made of non-ferrous metals. That seems like an enormous catch to us! Here is a brief list of places in the real world you can take the Hendo:

  • Down to the supermarket, provided your municipal sidewalks are made of aluminum
  • To the skate park, as long as the half-pipe is constructed out of copper
  • Over a local fountain (that’s filled with liquid gold)

What Arx Pax has done is invent a levitating board that can do approximately 0 percent of the things you would want to do on an actual hoverboard. Also, while we’re on the subject, we already have flying cars. They’re called helicopters, and they’re really freaking expensive.

No, We Don’t Have Back to the Future Hoverboards