We learned back in March that Mark Cuban was still making a hoverboard, but there wasn’t much information about what it would be capable of or how much it would cost. But now, Radical Transport — the company making the hoverboard for Cuban — has offered some of the first details in a YouTube video, which you can see above. After originally aiming for April, the Moov hoverboard will now supposedly hit Kickstarter around the end of May. It will be available there in limited quantities for $1,099, and will retail for $1,299.
Radical Transport hopes to distinguish its hoverboard from the myriad others in a few ways. The biggest is that the Moov has a unibody aluminum design, which means it doesn’t pivot in the middle. If the video is any indication, the Moov will still be as maneuverable as other hoverboards. But the rider’s input gets translated into that movement in a much different way. The Moov responds to the shifting of a rider’s weight almost like a Segway, whereas the more typical way to control a hoverboard involved riders twisting their feet together at the ankle to accelerate or decelerate, or separately to turn and pivot.
It’s bigger than a standard hoverboard, and definitely more expensive
This allowed Radical Transport to stick a handle slot in the middle of the board, which should make the Moov easier to carry around. (That’s probably a good thing, since the Moov appears to be much larger than most hoverboards.) The Moov will also have a top speed of around 16 miles per hour with about 12 miles of range. And it has all the expected hoverboard accoutrements, like LED lights and a smartphone app.
There are signs that the “memeufacturing factories” that once pumped out hoverboards have now shifted their efforts to making fidget spinners instead, so there’s certainly room for a completely US-based company like Radical Transport. But considering unpopular hoverboards became after so many of them caught fire, the more important question is whether there are enough customers left to buy them.