Electric Outboards just not there yet?

[Travelling Westerly]

For longer trips, if you have an evening in a pub or restaurant, the staff are usually happy to charge your battery while you have a meal. Worked for us!

That's exactly what I do, haven't found a pub yet that said no.
Also leave it charging at harbour masters office and the likes whilst going off for a walk etc. Used to have range anxiety to begin with but no longer. Gets me round the Scilly Islands no issue, just a bit slower than a petrol OB but I'm in no rush besides my wife often told me to slow down with the old 10hp 2s and didn't like getting splashed. We much prefer the no noise aspect of the Epropulsion.

 

[[2574]]

That's exactly what I do, haven't found a pub yet that said no.
Also leave it charging at harbour masters office and the likes whilst going off for a walk etc. Used to have range anxiety to begin with but no longer. Gets me round the Scilly Islands no issue, just a bit slower than a petrol OB but I'm in no rush besides my wife often told me to slow down with the old 10hp 2s and didn't like getting splashed. We much prefer the no noise aspect of the Epropulsion.

Costa coffee is a good place to recharge, offset the £3.50 for a coffee or more like £7 for two!

 

[xyachtdave]

That's exactly what I do, haven't found a pub yet that said no.
Also leave it charging at harbour masters office and the likes whilst going off for a walk etc. Used to have range anxiety to begin with but no longer. Gets me round the Scilly Islands no issue, just a bit slower than a petrol OB but I'm in no rush besides my wife often told me to slow down with the old 10hp 2s and didn't like getting splashed. We much prefer the no noise aspect of the Epropulsion.

In the book 'Get Real, Get Gone ' they discuss tenders and outboards. They used inflatable canoes if I remember correctly, my reason for quoting this text was the authors observation on the ARC fleet arriving.

Something along the lines of.....'They spend the last 2 -3 weeks travelling 2000 miles at 6 knots and they have to do the last 1/2 mile to the beach at 25 knots'.

 

[LONG_KEELER]

I still feel electric has some tough competition from petrol. You have to compete with things like a choke knob (now gone forever in cars), And how about the pull chord ? The consumer still must get intimate with his stuff in some way. At least for a generation or two.

Really efficient stuff is only for folks who need it to earn a living and have to compete init ? ?

 

[mjcoon]

I still feel electric has some tough competition from petrol. You have to compete with things like a choke knob (now gone forever in cars), And how about the pull chord ? The consumer still must get intimate with his stuff in some way. At least for a generation or two.

Really efficient stuff is only for folks who need it to earn a living and have to compete init ? ?

I'm baffled at the point you are making. Are you regretting the inability to flood an electric engine?

 

[AntarcticPilot]

I bought an electric car the year before last. Many of the arguments here apply to EVs as well as to outboards! First of all, the electric vehicle is FAR smoother and more responsive to drive than an ICE car, and the acceleration is good (sports car good) throughout the speed range. When I've driven an ICE loan car, I became aware of how very uneven the power curve is, even with an automatic drive. For driving comfort, I wouldn't go back to an ICE. But the flip side is that I have to watch the range carefully - not because charging points are infrequent, but because it takes a minimum of an hour to charge the vehicle. I didn't buy an EV until I could get one that would easily do the journey to and from the boat (my main long-distance drive) without recharging. I will be doing a tour of the UK in late June/early July and that will take careful planning; something I didn't have to think about with an ICE car.

All this is relevant to this discussion. It seems to me that an electric outboard has exactly the same advantages and disadvantages as an EV. The user experience is generally better; the power curve is flatter and better suited to the application, and it is responsive at all speeds. In the case of electric outboards, there is an obvious compromise between ultimate power and range - but there's no reason why a high-power outboard should be significantly heavier than existing models. But the power density of batteries is nowhere near as good as that of petrol or diesel, so the major limitation is how big a battery you can carry. If the battery must be portable, as with an electric outboard, that is a severe restriction that limits range and means that low power is the usual design choice - you can have high power OR long range, but not both!

 

[flaming]

RS have already launched an all Electric rib. 20 miles range at full chat. 40 at 15 knots, 100 at 5 knots. Plenty for most uses....

Electric Leisure Boats - Zero Emissions - RS Electric Boats

It will be interesting to see if they add more, smaller, models. I think that, a bit like EV cars, there is the opportunity to take a bit of a fresh look at what a tender looks like once it's designed for electric, rather than petrol. In the EV world this has meant an increase in wheel base allowed by the lack of an engine, and the ground up EVs are taking advantage of this in terms of cabin space etc.

I wonder if in the future medium sized yacht tenders (such as the ribs that liveaboards use in the Caribbean etc) will have the battery built into the boat, allowing the "outboard" to be very light and the boat not to have to be designed with the weight of the outboard and fuel tank right at the back.

As batteries come down in size and price I can also see smaller units, such as those for rubber flubbers, having more than 1 battery, with one charging from the boat's solar whilst the other is in use. Or both being taken for whole day excursions.

 

[onesea]

This brings me to where I got to.
How I use my tender I could leave the batteries in the boat. However I would have to rely on solar charging.
I would still have to carry the propulsion to and from dinghy.
The challenge is size of batteries/ size of solar panel, weight / cost of engine. I have not found an outboard that makes the balance.
Present electric outboards with 3hp approx 1000w weight 18-20kg 2 worker weighs 12 kg. That's allot more when carried to the boat daily.

 

[dunedin]

RS have already launched an all Electric rib. 20 miles range at full chat. 40 at 15 knots, 100 at 5 knots. Plenty for most uses....

Electric Leisure Boats - Zero Emissions - RS Electric Boats

It will be interesting to see if they add more, smaller, models. I think that, a bit like EV cars, there is the opportunity to take a bit of a fresh look at what a tender looks like once it's designed for electric, rather than petrol. In the EV world this has meant an increase in wheel base allowed by the lack of an engine, and the ground up EVs are taking advantage of this in terms of cabin space etc.

I wonder if in the future medium sized yacht tenders (such as the ribs that liveaboards use in the Caribbean etc) will have the battery built into the boat, allowing the "outboard" to be very light and the boat not to have to be designed with the weight of the outboard and fuel tank right at the back.

As batteries come down in size and price I can also see smaller units, such as those for rubber flubbers, having more than 1 battery, with one charging from the boat's solar whilst the other is in use. Or both being taken for whole day excursions.

We are getting a long way from 1kW / 2hp outboards for pootling around in a tender ……. but i wonder if an electric RIB is an evolutionary dead end, as it will consume a huge amount of power, whereas the high power for short time + high efficiency at low load of an electric drive makes it ideal for a foiling powerboat - bags of power to get foil borne, then extremely efficient when up (unlike a RIB) - eg Candela - Hydrofoiling Electric Boats - The world's only fast and long-range electric boat.

 

[flaming]

We are getting a long way from 1kW / 2hp outboards for pootling around in a tender ……. but i wonder if an electric RIB is an evolutionary dead end, as it will consume a huge amount of power, whereas the high power for short time + high efficiency at low load of an electric drive makes it ideal for a foiling powerboat - bags of power to get foil borne, then extremely efficient when up (unlike a RIB) - eg Candela - Hydrofoiling Electric Boats - The world's only fast and long-range electric boat.

There's a lot to be said for that.

 

[onesea]

There's a lot to be said for that.

Like less motorboat wash...???

 

[LONG_KEELER]

I'm baffled at the point you are making. Are you regretting the inability to flood an electric engine?

Yes sort of. I find that many traits in sailing don't make much sense other than to the user.