ari
Well-Known Member
Got any numbers on that and a source? Or is it just a feeling, like the chap further up the thread who had a feeling that hybrid boats were a good solution..?
Do we now need an electric boat forum???
- Thread starter kashurst
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Bouba
Well-Known Member
A feeling from me is as good as a fact from anyone elseGot any numbers on that and a source? Or is it just a feeling, like the chap further up the thread who had a feeling that hybrid boats were a good solution..?
ari
Well-Known Member
Ahh, well, there we are then, again.A feeling from me is as good as a fact from anyone else
I do find the slightly evangelical belief of those that think electric cars/boats/aeroplanes etc are 'the answer' interesting. There's a faintly religious 'you just have to believe and you will be saved' nature to it. Fascinating
Bouba
Well-Known Member
So why are you resisting the electric surge ?Ahh, well, there we are then, again.
I do find the slightly evangelical belief of those that think electric cars/boats/aeroplanes etc are 'the answer' interesting. There's a faintly religious 'you just have to believe and you will be saved' nature to it. Fascinating
ari
Well-Known Member
Where have I said I'm resisting it?
I think it would be fantastic IF there was sufficient infrastructure to support it, IF sensible range could be achieved, and IF the serious ecological problems of creating, and then disposing of, batteries could be resolved.
I'd just rather a more objective view of the entire situation was taken, as opposed to wishful thinking. Remember, the biggest advocates of this (the government) are the same organisation telling us 20 years ago that diesel for vehicles, rather than petrol, was the answer, and creating subsidies (such as reduced fuel tax) to try and coerce people to buy diesel vehicles. Lower emissions, see? Loads better for the environment, see? Then, oh, particulates, we didn't stop to consider that. Oops.
Fire99
Well-Known Member
(I'll leave the religious question for somewhere else but just say my beliefs are not based on 'you just have to believe' principles. It has a little more substance than that.. but does involve belief.. Obviously)
Anyway, back on point. Yep I take your stance on electric boating. Concepts remain concepts until proven otherwise. We have some electric marine hardware going on. Hardy are doing a bit of 'hybriding'. There are plenty of electric trolling motors which at the moment I'd say is about the only real 'win' so far since for tenders they are light, low maintance, work with the tiny ranges and tiny speeds most tenders need and you can take them home in the car, charge them up and do it all over again. The good ones are a bit pricey though. But for those who don't want to plane their tenders, it saves fuel tanks, smells, hassles and all sorts.. So I give mostly a thumbs up to electric trolling motors.
Day hire boats I'd say are much the same because they are mostly like upmarket floating bumper cars. A little spin on the water for people who don't usually do boating and they're easy, clean, low maintance etc etc etc...
The rest is mostly to me If and when, Will it?, Will they?, When the infrastructure is in place, When the battery range improves, when when when. When the when becomes something of substance that genuinely resolves the roadblocks (so to speak) then it'll be thumbs up for me. But feelings, hopes and dreams don't make realities.. Until reality happens it's all still 'somewhere over the rainbow'.
Bouba
Well-Known Member
It can’t wait until the infrastructure is in place.....most marinas barely invest in upgrades...let alone spending a fortune on electrifying the place in the hope someone will then buy an electric boat. Early adopters have to take the plunge...use whatever ad hoc method of charging they can cobble together....and then, when it takes off and a significant proportion of punters have electric boats...then try and persuade the port to support them
ari
Well-Known Member
Totally agree with all of that, and indeed have (and love) an electric outboard for our tender. Never any starting issues, never leaks oil or petrol, never needs servicing, and can be 'refueled' from the mothership. (Which also made me laugh when accused of 'resisting the electric surge').
But yes, as for the rest, wishful thinking for the foreseeable.
Bouba
Well-Known Member
I only said it for pun value
oldgit
Well-Known Member
The very first mobile phone that Vodafone sold, the VM1 stretches the definition of "portable", as you'd expect from an early attempt. While, yes, that is technically a carrying handle, it weighed nearly five kilos, so was really intended to be bolted into a car, while the handset would ride up front next to your driving seat.It even had an aerial that would be drilled into your car for reception. So, more car phone than mobile phone, but the VM1 still took the baby steps that were needed.
Cost in 1985: £1,475
Inflation-adjusted cost today: £4,400
Virtually no cell sites and rubbish coverage.
Airtime rental about £25.00 a month and 50p per minute airtime. Full minutes only.
Far too expensive .....It will never catch on.
Whats the problem with these. ?
A VCR would cost about £600 in the 1980s thats about £2840.07 in 2023.
To expensive it will never catch on.
In fact just about everything was too expensive and not going to happen such a short time ago.
Remember somebody asking me to come and have look at his new fangled computor in the late 1970s really posh green monitor and everything. Cost about £700.00.
20 mins hard programming could produce lots of numbers scrolling slowly across the screen.
You ought to get involved with selling these they are the future,all you need is to learn to code .
Not for me mate, no infrastructure, however if somebody could come up with plan to make these things communicate and a method of allowing dim people to use them.
Will stick to FAX..
Pretty certain he at the time had neither cat or mouse.
Cost in 1985: £1,475
Inflation-adjusted cost today: £4,400
Virtually no cell sites and rubbish coverage.
Airtime rental about £25.00 a month and 50p per minute airtime. Full minutes only.
Far too expensive .....It will never catch on.
Whats the problem with these. ?
A VCR would cost about £600 in the 1980s thats about £2840.07 in 2023.
To expensive it will never catch on.
In fact just about everything was too expensive and not going to happen such a short time ago.
Remember somebody asking me to come and have look at his new fangled computor in the late 1970s really posh green monitor and everything. Cost about £700.00.
20 mins hard programming could produce lots of numbers scrolling slowly across the screen.
You ought to get involved with selling these they are the future,all you need is to learn to code .
Not for me mate, no infrastructure, however if somebody could come up with plan to make these things communicate and a method of allowing dim people to use them.
Will stick to FAX..
Pretty certain he at the time had neither cat or mouse.
Last edited:
flaming
Well-Known Member
Of course an electric powered boat has circumnavigated…
Tûranor PlanetSolar - Wikipedia
Which I think gives some clues as to what large liveaboard motor boats might look like if ICE propulsion does entirely disappear.
Tûranor PlanetSolar - Wikipedia
Which I think gives some clues as to what large liveaboard motor boats might look like if ICE propulsion does entirely disappear.
ari
Well-Known Member
It's not going to happen in our lifetime so it's not something I'll worry about.
Fire99
Well-Known Member
I was raised in the home micro era so really from around the Sinclair ZX81 in '81 that was my very fast tech learning era as a pre-teen and ended up working / socialising in tech for donkeys years.. I've done most of it. Evolution of programming languages. Implementation and development of transmission protocols that became the internet, Shifting server technologies, virtualisation etc etc..The very first mobile phone that Vodafone sold, the VM1 stretches the definition of "portable", as you'd expect from an early attempt. While, yes, that is technically a carrying handle, it weighed nearly five kilos, so was really intended to be bolted into a car, while the handset would ride up front next to your driving seat.It even had an aerial that would be drilled into your car for reception. So, more car phone than mobile phone, but the VM1 still took the baby steps that were needed.
Cost in 1985: £1,475
Inflation-adjusted cost today: £4,400
Virtually no cell sites and rubbish coverage.
Airtime rental about £25.00 a month and 50p per minute airtime. Full minutes only.
View attachment 169536
Far too expensive .....It will never catch on.
Whats the problem with these. ?
View attachment 169537
A VCR would cost about £600 in the 1980s thats about £2840.07 in 2023.
To expensive it will never catch on.
In fact just about everything was too expensive and not going to happen such a short time ago.
View attachment 169538
Remember somebody asking me to come and have look at his new fangled computor in the late 1970s really posh green monitor and everything. Cost about £700.00.
20 mins hard programming could produce lots of numbers scrolling slowly across the screen.
You ought to get involved with selling these they are the future,all you need is to learn to code .
Not for me mate, no infrastructure, however if somebody could come up with plan to make these things communicate and a method of allowing dim people to use them.
Will stick to FAX..
Pretty certain he at the time had neither cat or mouse.
There is a hug BUT in all this.. The above technologies were good in concept for the functions they aimed to deliver. They just needed to be developed and 'evolved' into a tech and price point that would work in the mass market. But there are vast quantities of technological developments that were 'heralded' as the next big thing but came, saw, and disappeared again..
Thinking of transport, who remembers the Airship? That was once touted as the next 'big thing' in travel. It wasn't.
Asbestos.. An amazing insulator, until it started killing people.
Betamax video.. Arguably better tech but the convenience / manufacture of VHS won.
Laserdisc - Looked like a CD and was supposed to be the great digital VHS replacement. It wasn't.
Back to travel, we have the Reliant Robin that other than bringing a lot of ridicule but a great TV show starring it, it revolutionised nothing and the Segway.. Everyone was talking about it.. Not anymore..
Just a few off the bat. What you have listed are some of the success cases of technology where we can see where we are now and look back to the infancy but there are countless examples of things that people thought were going to be great but went no-where or where the technology was great but it didn't fit a willing market.
Apple was a great example for that in the 90s with the likes of the Newton, Pippin, OpenDoc, Copland OS. Steve Jobs himself said after his return that Apple made some great technological products but hadn't thought wether there was market looking for them.
Electrification in motors in some ways is an amazingly simple technology that has a whole bucket of selling points. BUT that doesn't mean it's guaranteed to work in every area where it attempts to infiltrate. It also has some serious limitations. Serious enough to fail in mass use for motorboats? At the moment I would say 'highly likely' without changing the entire structure of how recreational boats operate. So if we restrict the market so 50% of current motorboaters can't do it anymore because of the limitations of EV tech then I would call that a fail. Not a win if the other 50% somehow can.
flaming
Well-Known Member
I think this is the point really. Fossil fuels have been exceedingly useful for all sorts of purposes, but are being put rather firmly in the same camp as asbestos. Something that we need to stop using.
For quite a lot of the current use cases for fossil fuels batteries provide a perfectly adequate replacement. For others they don’t offer a like for like replacement.
There’s absolutely nothing that says that everything we have historically done with fossil fuels will, or can, continue.
Fire99
Well-Known Member
I agree. Everything changes. The key surely is to change what genuinely needs changing or where the change genuinely brings a better solution but not just sweepingly changing things that don't need (nor benefit) the change, or trying to squeeze a technology into a box where it really doesn't fit. There is a lot of hysteria a the present time (on both sides of the coin) where blanket emotion seems to overrule measured intelligent decision making..
ari
Well-Known Member
But do you know what hasn't changed from that very first Vodafone VT1 to the very latest iPhone? The time it takes to charge them...The very first mobile phone that Vodafone sold, the VM1 stretches the definition of "portable", as you'd expect from an early attempt. While, yes, that is technically a carrying handle, it weighed nearly five kilos, so was really intended to be bolted into a car, while the handset would ride up front next to your driving seat.It even had an aerial that would be drilled into your car for reception. So, more car phone than mobile phone, but the VM1 still took the baby steps that were needed.
Cost in 1985: £1,475
Inflation-adjusted cost today: £4,400
Virtually no cell sites and rubbish coverage.
Airtime rental about £25.00 a month and 50p per minute airtime. Full minutes only.
View attachment 169536
Far too expensive .....It will never catch on.
Whats the problem with these. ?
View attachment 169537
A VCR would cost about £600 in the 1980s thats about £2840.07 in 2023.
To expensive it will never catch on.
In fact just about everything was too expensive and not going to happen such a short time ago.
View attachment 169538
Remember somebody asking me to come and have look at his new fangled computor in the late 1970s really posh green monitor and everything. Cost about £700.00.
20 mins hard programming could produce lots of numbers scrolling slowly across the screen.
You ought to get involved with selling these they are the future,all you need is to learn to code .
Not for me mate, no infrastructure, however if somebody could come up with plan to make these things communicate and a method of allowing dim people to use them.
Will stick to FAX..
Pretty certain he at the time had neither cat or mouse.
billskip
Well-Known Member
That's why android is better.....But do you know what hasn't changed from that very first Vodafone VT1 to the very latest iPhone? The time it takes to charge them...
flaming
Well-Known Member
If you haven’t noticed that politics has more to do with what will, or will not, happen to the supply of fossil fuels than logic, then I really cannot help you.
Forty_Two
Well-Known Member
I had one of thoose in 1986. £1,750 if i remember right but on a lease. Remember sitting on Bournmouth beach with it taking a call from the bank manager for my Studio business i was just starting. Thought i was the bee's knee's, what a prattBut do you know what hasn't changed from that very first Vodafone VT1 to the very latest iPhone? The time it takes to charge them...
Fire99
Well-Known Member
I'm not looking for your help.. You could just make the point without the smarmy statement since your point has some merit and oddly I was mostly agreeing with what you had said. Obviously politics has a huge part to play but politics is also influenced by commercial forces. If you think the politicians are calling the shots then, to use your words "I really cannot help you". But this is just 'willy-waving' . My fundamental point is, and I'll keep it simple (I wouldn't want anyone getting confused), if the technology is cr@p for the intended purpose, it will have very limited take-up. When it comes to the bulk of the motorboat market, as it sits today that's exactly where we are with it. There isn't an infrastructure to serve it. Now we can play 'fossil-fuel-prediction-bingo' all we like but as it stands today, we'll be waiting a very long time for anything to significantly change in the electrification of private motorboats.
