The company calls it a ‘vehicle.’
It looks a little more like a big floating tabletop.
But what could be the ‘first commercial hoverboard’ is here. And if you’ve got $19,900 to drop, it can all be yours. The company behind ArcaBoard, New Mexico-based private aerospace company Arca, says the boards will start shipping on April 15, 2016.
This isn’t the first time that consumers have gotten a glimpse of Back to the Future-style hovering tech.
MORE: Why You Won’t Be Finding Hoverboards at This Mall
There was the Lexus “Slide” last fall, and the Hendo hover company introduced its first board in 2014. Both use magnetic fields to get their riders off the ground. But neither are really available to the public: The Lexus model was never released, and the Hendo’s first hovering board was only billed to a handful of Kickstarter backers who pledged $10,000 to the project.
The new ArcaBoard doesn’t rely on magnetic surfaces like the others. Instead, it’s got a massive fleet of 36 fans set in the body of the thick board to boost the flier to heights of about a foot off the ground or over water.
WATCH: For more Coins2Day coverage of hoverboards, check out this video:
But how will all of that fan power sound? Will the boards whiz around town with a cute Jetsons-style whir or careen about like some noisy unmuffled junker? We’ll have to wait until the boards start cruising around next spring to know for sure. The new board doesn’t require any special license, and can be navigated on a smartphone. Or, if you’re brave enough, you can steer with your body, though in Arca’s test videos, that looked like a wobbly ride.
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The Arcaboard still seems pretty impractical for daily use: The company recommends vacuuming your board after every use to keep it clean. But you’ll probably be stuck pretty close to your home vacuum cleaner anyway, since the board can only travel a little over a mile and stay airborne for 3-6 minutes at a time, maxing out at 12.5 miles an hour.
So the first-of-its-kind board may not be the future of transportation, but at least it’s not catching fire in a mall.
