Electric Boats

[Rwc13]

“As I said before you simply cannot embed enough power in batteries for the weight and size the car can carry yet.”

This statement is so clearly not true. Do you not read what you write and check it before you press reply?

It might have been true if you had said “for the use I make of my car” or ”to do 1000 miles without charging”

Why can so many people not see beyond their own personal use case and recognise that EVs are a brilliant solution for others. Thats why EVs are being purchased in ever increasing numbers. Not everybody does very long journeys regularly and a small EV works particularly well as a local use “shopping” type car.

The same will be true of electric boats. For a certain type of user, like me, and I suspect we are much larger in number than the big boat/extended cruise owners, they will deliver what we need. That is why businesses are investing in designing and building them. Because there is a huge potential market for them.

 

[westernman]

Yes a little rich even for my blood plus I don't really like the white interior and it all looks a bit Teslaish not Mercedes but one would have to sit in it first.

You can have the interior in black.

 

[Fr J Hackett]

You can have the interior in black.

In that case I'll have two.

 

[Seastoke]

“As I said before you simply cannot embed enough power in batteries for the weight and size the car can carry yet.”

This statement is so clearly not true. Do you not read what you write and check it before you press reply?

It might have been true if you had said “for the use I make of my car” or ”to do 1000 miles without charging”

Why can so many people not see beyond their own personal use case and recognise that EVs are a brilliant solution for others. Thats why EVs are being purchased in ever increasing numbers. Not everybody does very long journeys regularly and a small EV works particularly well as a local use “shopping” type car.

The same will be true of electric boats. For a certain type of user, like me, and I suspect we are much larger in number than the big boat/extended cruise owners, they will deliver what we need. That is why businesses are investing in designing and building them. Because there is a huge potential market for them.

Its time , the combustion engine has been around to long

 

[Optima]

well it does appear that I started some discussion, which was the intention and there are some very interesting comments. I will go through them and try to address the comments/questions where I can in replies to various posts.
Fundamentally I do not believe that we can expect to be allowed, either by legislation or our own consciousness, to continue with pastimes or hobbies that are contributing to the decline and eventual death of our planet. If we do not reform by choice then ultimately we will be forced to by legislation. There were a lot of sceptics about electric cars, but in my view they are great. Massive reduction in running costs and have saved significant time in not visiting a petrol station in the last 8 months since I bought an EV. For sure the infrastructure for fast charging needs to improve, but when you do plug into a 150kW fast charger it is quick and easy. This is also happening in marine with Aqua Superpower now installing fast chargers in several marinas in the UK and around the world. more to follow.....

 

[Optima]

My boat is a sailing one, well at least it has the white flappy things. If I can't sail the engine is used. I also use the engine with sails when the wind is very light. Under power I have a range of about 30 hours at just under 5 knots. When I get low on fuel I pop into a marina and buy more and then carry on. I prefer to anchor so the boat is geared up as much as possible to be self sufficient, though drinking water is the biggest problem, dinghy ashore and you can normally find a tap.
If I go electric motor I'm not sure where the batteries would go or where to put solar panels apart from on the deck where you walk. Battery weight could be a problem as the boat is a catamaran so no ballast that it could replace. Existing fuel tanks are metal with plastic portable ones stored in a locker that gets plenty of water in it.
Like Hurricane I feel hydrogen is the way ahead with quick refuelling and a good range.

Hydrogen is likely to be very important in the future but requires much greater change and investment in infrastructure, so the change to hydrogen will take longer. Improvements to Solar PV power/m2 will also help, including integrated PV into decks, superstructures etc to increase the effective area. This is all beginning to happen. Battery weights will reduce with energy density potentially increasing by 5x in the future. but electric propulsion can work with the current technology in many applications including some retrofits and especially in new craft optimised for electric propulsion.

 

[Optima]

Not writing them off John.

The OP came on and said that electric boats won’t have enough power to go fast. So get used to enjoying going slow. And gave no thought whatsoever to the power needed for things other than propulsion.

If that power can be provided by electricity rather than internal combustion in the future, fine.

But that isn’t what this thread is about. It is about compromising what we do to fit our requirements to a boat that the OP makes!!

It is not about compromising what you do to fit out boats, it is more about accepting that we all need to accept compromises in our lives if we wish to avoid catastrophic climate disaster. future legislation will probably ban ICE leisure boats, as is already happening in some places.

 

[westernman]

well it does appear that I started some discussion, which was the intention and there are some very interesting comments. I will go through them and try to address the comments/questions where I can in replies to various posts.
Fundamentally I do not believe that we can expect to be allowed, either by legislation or our own consciousness, to continue with pastimes or hobbies that are contributing to the decline and eventual death of our planet. If we do not reform by choice then ultimately we will be forced to by legislation. There were a lot of sceptics about electric cars, but in my view they are great. Massive reduction in running costs and have saved significant time in not visiting a petrol station in the last 8 months since I bought an EV. For sure the infrastructure for fast charging needs to improve, but when you do plug into a 150kW fast charger it is quick and easy. This is also happening in marine with Aqua Superpower now installing fast chargers in several marinas in the UK and around the world. more to follow.....

A lot of sense in what you say. But I don't think the future for boating will be hydrogen. It might be ammonia or methanol.

This is how to convert "green" electricity to liquid fuels:-

Power-to-Liquids - Fraunhofer ISE

This is about running ships on ammonia.
Successful tests pave the way for ammonia as a future marine fuel

I think may cars might go to methanol or ammonia in the long term future as well. Both can (or will be able to) be used in fuel cells.

Hydrogen might make sense for aircraft (biggest bang per kg). Although it takes up a lot of space. (You thought seating was dense in Ryanair - you ain't seen nothing yet).

ZEROe - Zero emission - Airbus

Or there is wind energy. We could put sails onto motor boats.

 

[Optima]

What we need is lighter hulls and alas that means Carbon fibre panels for the go fast boy or girl racers. For the more adventurous the existing full displacement hulls built of anything except steel are perfectly OK, BUT in both cases the power to weight ratio of the batteries does matter. Alas nothing beats Lithium Iron, with NiCad's second.
Afghanistan has by far the biggest deposits of Lithium ore in the world, and none of them have been touched. The best ore fields are down South as they are mixed with ultra fine Gold deposits, so far more profitable than the deposits in central Afghanistan. China got the rights to the biblical Copper ore deposits in the North East, but the rights to the Lithium ore fields are still up for grabs. If we, as in the rich Western countries can get the Li ore fields it will make a huge difference to the cost of Li batteries.
The US, Canada and Australia have plenty of nickel and Cadmium, but no cheap Li ore fields.

the use of ultra-lightweight materials such as carbon fibre is a complex balance on boat cost and environmental grounds. Carbon fibre has large embodied energy, mainly due to the very high processing temperatures, so that actually depends on how clean the energy used is. but saving weight on the structure reduces the energy consumption through-life and the amount of battery storage required. So reducing weight is a very good thing and in some cases carbon fibre is justified. Especially for vehicles subject to a lot of use, such as ferries, commercial boats etc. A leisure boat in a boat club used extensively would also tip that balance.

 

[penfold]

Remarkable how many people have the bladder fortitude and cast iron bum to drive xxx miles non-stop when these arguments arise; anecdotes that are not evidence are another.

 

[Optima]

Much rather get involved in reforestation, putting right the deforestation of the industrial revolution than aiding and abetting stuff like this .Tesla owners turn away now !

Aside keeping leisure boats diesel does not put strain on domestic electricity demand .
The greater the shift to renewables the less reliable production becomes ……when the wind stops , or sea becalms etc etc .
So it’s madness prompting more consumer appliances which in effect charge points are .Be it cars or boats .

Feels to me a VHS / Beta Max moment all over again . .
They both ran together for a while no one knew which one to get , which one would end up the leader ?

i agree that cobalt production is a major concern, which is why Tesla and others are moving to cobalt-free batteries.

 

[westernman]

Remarkable how many people have the bladder fortitude and cast iron bum to drive xxx miles non-stop when these arguments arise; anecdotes that are not evidence are another.

I think the long term future is EVs with battery capacity no more than a couple of KWH. I.e. with fuel cells.
See post #127.

 

[Rwc13]

As a local I shall certainly be attending this next April. Imagine , a whole boat show to demonstrate it’s not possible ?

Galaxia Electric Boat Show - General Access

 

[westernman]

As a local I shall certainly be attending this next April. Imagine , a whole boat show to demonstrate it’s not possible ?

Galaxia Electric Boat Show - General Access

I can't find any list of anyone showing a boat there....

 

[Portofino]

well it does appear that I started some discussion, which was the intention and there are some very interesting comments. I will go through them and try to address the comments/questions where I can in replies to various posts.
Fundamentally I do not believe that we can expect to be allowed, either by legislation or our own consciousness, to continue with pastimes or hobbies that are contributing to the decline and eventual death of our planet.

Nobody’s arguing with that .
The point is leisure boating has zero effect .Well Ok for the pedantic a 00000000 .1 % of the total contribution to make it negligible.

As I said EV s are in a different league , the governments , public and industry have gotten on board .This is because there contrition % has no zeros behind the decimal point .= Worth a WW shift .

Aside with leisure boating specifically MAN have introduced some hybrid tech see here below
MAN Hybrid-System | MAN Engines.

Isn’t this sufficient ?
I mean owners can feel “ green “ .Builders can feel “ green “ Governments can sell ultra low emission zones to Joe boater , AND the electorate .Win .Win .

Hurricanes next 67 ftr can merge into this tech ..

Oh nearly forgot the leisure boat industry now contributes 0000000.1 % . A whole decimal point shift .I am being generous as well .

If it makes everyone feel better while China commissions another a coal fired power station each week , and Australia keeps digging up coal and shipping over then so be it .

Its or your proposed E boat is just a marketing trendy thing .Be honest about it .Enjoy the band wagon ride btw .

 

[penfold]

i agree that cobalt production is a major concern, which is why Tesla and others are moving to cobalt-free batteries.

Fussing about cobalt or whatever is the mineral du jour is facile, regardless of the specifics the new bestest stuff for making batteries/latest gewgaw will be subject to supply and demand and price will drive mining to supply it; extractive industry is messy, unregulated extractive industry is an ecological disaster and we blithely let it go on, although while the chinese hold such sway it's debatable whether meaningful change can be brought about as they give few s**ts about their own environment and zero s**ts about worker safety so why would they care about africans dying in mines and poisoning their landscape?

 

[Bigplumbs]

“As I said before you simply cannot embed enough power in batteries for the weight and size the car can carry yet.”

This statement is so clearly not true. Do you not read what you write and check it before you press reply?

It might have been true if you had said “for the use I make of my car” or ”to do 1000 miles without charging”

Why can so many people not see beyond their own personal use case and recognise that EVs are a brilliant solution for others. Thats why EVs are being purchased in ever increasing numbers. Not everybody does very long journeys regularly and a small EV works particularly well as a local use “shopping” type car.

The same will be true of electric boats. For a certain type of user, like me, and I suspect we are much larger in number than the big boat/extended cruise owners, they will deliver what we need. That is why businesses are investing in designing and building them. Because there is a huge potential market for them.

If you nave an electric car and if only once in a while you wish to travel a long journey you are buggered.

 

[Fr J Hackett]

If you nave an electric car and if only once in a while you wish to travel a long journey you are buggered.

That was my feeling a little while ago as I have to make several 1000Km+ journeys a year but I now know that with a decent range EV of 500 to 600Km you can easily do it with 3 or 4 short 10 to 15 minute stops. At the moment the saloon cars that I like to drive in EV format are just over the top expense wise but give it 3 or 4 years and they will be reasonable. I expect my current CLK with low milage to easily last to the point they are priced reasonably.

 

[westernman]

That was my feeling a little while ago as I have to make several 1000Km+ journeys a year but I now know that with a decent range EV of 500 to 600Km you can easily do it with 3 or 4 short 10 to 15 minute stops. At the moment the saloon cars that I like to drive in EV format are just over the top expense wise but give it 3 or 4 years and they will be reasonable. I expect my current CLK with low milage to easily last to the point they are priced reasonably.

I will pick up my* new Mercedes E class plugin hybrid early next month. This is affordable with the tax fiddles around at the moment for plugin hybrids.

Next year there will be a new Mercedes E class full electric EV. If the S class EV is any measure, then the E class EV will cost about 20K more than a standard E class petrol or diesel. So I don't think that my next company car in 4 years time is going to be an EV.

*Actually it is a company car leased to my company.

 

[Fr J Hackett]

I will pick up my* new Mercedes E class plugin hybrid early next month. This is affordable with the tax fiddles around at the moment for plugin hybrids.

Next year there will be a new Mercedes E class full electric EV. If the S class EV is any measure, then the E class EV will cost about 20K more than a standard E class petrol or diesel. So I don't think that my next company car in 4 years time is going to be an EV.

*Actually it is a company car leased to my company.

At the moment I am quite content to run the CLK till it's wheels fall off which should be quite a long time ( I might regret selling the CLS) so an EV for me as a private punter is not a necessity and will only be so when the CLK is non viable and or the price of top end EVs is something like their ICE equivalent.