Electric Boat made easy?

[Horton]

https://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/electric-crate-motor/

[Rednucleus]

They should send you one to try so you can do a BOS review. Will need a big knife to open that box!

[oldjeep]

60k for 240hp. Such a deal

[Horton]

@oldjeep I said easy not cheap

[ALPJr]

What is the weight comparison?

[swc5150]

this will be something to watch. Prices will come waaaay down in relatively short order. 240hp may not sound great, but the power curve is.

[oldjeep]

Just about anything is easy if you are willing to throw stupid money at it.

[ALPJr]

Prices will come down. In 10 or so years many government and business fleets will be 50% or more EV. And the maintenance costs are lower, basically brakes and suspension. Makes sense that the marine market will follow to some degree.

[aupatking]

With most of the water cooling needs gone, I wonder how dry the bilge needs to be. Other than the through-hull with dripless shaft seal, it seems like, once economical, this could be a real option. I’m also curious about total weight difference, batteries and all.

[DW]

Article touts reliability as a key factor v an IC engine, but what are the last repairs made to your IC powered vehicle. I'll bet it was not a rod bearing or scuffed piston, more likely an alternator, starter, electric fuel pump or some other electronic part.

[BraceMaker]

@DW or dead battery...

 

If you think about all of those electronic parts that can fail however - they all support the internal combustion engine. Don't need them in your electric vehicle.

 

The form factor of making a motor look like an engine is largely pointless. Sure people are doing LS swaps into a ton of vehicles but the efforts to reconfigure engine bays to fit LS based engines in are astounding. They'd do better to have a motor that bolts to a universal motor mount pattern and a variety of bell housings and then to install into a car you'd just buy a new set of motor mounts and weld in whatever steel tube you would need to support the bell housing from twisting.

[BCM]

@ALPJr and @aupatking - the Ferrari conversion they list on the website shows an increase in total vehicle weight of 336lbs. Run time is a bit under 1/2 of the IC version but they added 100hp and a fair bit of torque. For me a 60 minute run time would be more than enough for 99% of my needs.

 

300lbs sound like a lot of weight but if you think about skiing with an almost empty tank and only a driver to a full tank with two bigger guys in the passenger seat, you're looking at 600-ish pounds of weight change between sets. I would imagine you could get creative with where you place the batteries to better balance the boat as well.

[BrennanKMN]

What does Coast Guard approval look like for an all electric boat? Did the Electric Ski Nautiuqe ever go through the USGC approval process? I know nothing about it, but I would bet there are/would be some hurdles there as well.

 

I think a hybrid would be pretty cool. Electric for lots of the idle time and slow speed stuff and gas for towing skiers.

[eleeski]

@DW I have two dead boats at my lake. Both with frozen engines (probably due to a non winterized hard freeze - in Socal?!). My latest repair was to replace the raw water pick up pump. No electrical component failures on my 11MC but one sensor did fail in the boat's 9 years (gas gauge failure doesn't count because it never interfered with skiing).

 

My older boats needed carb replacement before starters. But brackish bilge water will be a challenge for mechanical items and electrics.

 

Hopefully electric power will be as reliable as new IC powerplants.

 

Eric

[BraceMaker]

@eleeski - electrical components do brackish water pretty well, crawl up under a car in Illinois sometime in winter and its salt slush center.

[ReallyGottaSki]

I suspect anything electric that puts down 200+hp continuous for a towboat's duty-cycle will still require water cooling.

[Horton]

https://electrek.co/2020/10/29/gm-1977-k5-blazer-e-converted-electric-power-ecrate-conversion-kit/

[LoopSki]

Not that I care , but I find it funny you find this relevant but not a thread about pontoon boat with Zero off that boasts itself as a water sports boat. Including waterskiing. Lol. Electric ski boat meh

[Horton]

Chevrolet readies an electric crate motor for homebuilt EV hot rods

 

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/10/chevrolet-readies-an-electric-crate-motor-for-homebuilt-ev-hotrods/

[Horton]

@LoopSki

 

[DW]

GM has an excellent crate engine (and now motor) program, won't be long until the GM Marine group gets their mitts on it. In case anybody wonders, Russ O'Blenes (person mentioned in the eCrate article) is a true gearhead.

[wski4msu]

While electric has some advantages with torque curve, I don’t think long term it is viable. I would like to see hydrogen.