Back to the Future-Style Hoverboards May Finally Become a Reality... Again

Great news for all you Back to the Future fans and people too lazy to push their skateboards: A real-life hoverboard may finally be on the horizon… again!

While many of the innovations featured in the 2015-set, Robert Zemeckis-directed sequel have been achieved — click here for a full checklist — the magnet-powered flying plank that Marty McFly famously rides has stayed in the future. But on Tuesday, automaker Lexus teased that it had finally cracked the code to constructing a working prototype of the floating ride, posting the video below:

The model, which was made as part of its “Amazing in Motion” campaign, is powered by liquid nitrogen-cooled superconductors and permanent magnets… and unfortunately, only floats above the street when magnets are laid beneath the concrete. They’re continuing to test it, according to USA Today, but at this point it is more promotional than functional.

This semi-successful prototype is just the latest attempt to make a hoverboard, which has tantalized scientists and engineers for three decades. Last October, a company called Arx Pax launched a Kickstarter to fund its research and production of a hoverboard that would float for up to 15 minutes over floors made of materials like copper and aluminum — basically, the same limitation as Lexus’ model.

But there’s bad news for all of these dreamers: The ubiquitous physicist, TV host, and buzz-harsher Neil DeGrasse Tyson recently said that hoverboards, based on our current technology and infrastructure, are just about impossible.