When a model of China’s 16-feet-high, two-lane-straddling bus debuted at a tech expo back in May, it looked absurd.
Today it still looks absurd—but it’s real. This week, the Transit Elevated Bus, whose bottom half serves as a tunnel for cars so it can bypass traffic, passed its first road test in Hebei, China. The blue-and-black behemoth cruised smoothly over two slow-moving cars, as evenly placed onlookers applauded and took videos with their phones.
Whether such orderly conditions qualify as a “test” for China’s notoriously chaotic roads is open to debate, but watching the spaceship-like vehicle in action is still pretty cool.