The future of boating is electric

You have been looking for the perfect power boat, just the right combination of luxury and exhilaration and the biggest mental blocker is do you want a filthy fuming stink boat (maybe you do) or do you want something electric (now we are talking)?

Polestar the Swedish/Chinese automotive company who have recently launched a range of electric vehicles are now also making boat engines. That might sound a little odd but actually there is a nautical link, Polestar which started as the racing division of the Swedish manufacturer Volvo, is now its own subsidiary building both electric cars and electric boat engines. That nautical heritage runs very deep with the Volvo Penta company (a subsidiary of Volvo) started in 1907 the mainstay of marine engines in boats all over the world, so Volvo Penta have been making marine engines and propulsion systems for 116 years, and some of that has to rub off.

CANDELA

Enter Swedish firm Candela, who in 2016 entered the market with the promise to transform how we think about marine transportation and to “radically push the performance boundaries of electric boats and ships”. It is amazing to consider that a 7.5 m petrol boat consumes about 15 x more fuel than a family car so there is a significant opportunity for electric boats to create a new and important market.

Founder and CEO Gustav Hasselskog says that “because the boat is essentially flying, it requires less energy”. Hasselkog (a mechanical engineer) designed the boat to take advantage of modern hydrofoil fins that rapidly lift the boat out of the water and use upto 80% less energy than conventional boats. The issue with hydrofoil’s is that they tend to have been unstable in changing water conditions. The Candela however has smart software that is designed to constantly ‘tune’ how the foil balances the boat, it does this ‘tuning’ more than 100 times per second, which in turn constantly smoothes the boat in real time.

This efficiency means that the Candela is about to solve one of the biggest problems that other electric boats have faced which is the low range they are able to travel at speed. Even with the latest high performance batteries, most electric boats can only go a fraction of the distance that their traditional petrol or diesel alternatives can go.

In December 2021 the firm raised €24m in venture capital with investors including TED founder Chris Anderson to expand the range of vehicles including the C7, C8 and ferries the P8 and the P12, the first of those ferries is expected onto Swedish waterways in 2023.

So back to what makes all this so exciting is that the C8 which offers a top speed of 30 knots and range of is now available to buy (albeit for an eye-watering starting price of $311,000 USD) and while that sounds like a toy for the uber wealthy, it is the beginning of the transformation – soon we will all be able to afford one.