Another Repower Option

[Kelvin]

At more than 500hp, this would make an interesting repower for a jump boat.

https://motortrend.com/news/tesla-crate-motor-ev-conversion-small-block-v-8/?sm_id=organic%3Asm_id%3Afb%3AMT%3Atrueanthem&fbclid=IwAR3HtqGqsSYBbiSWG_IWGDqaMrsPCYq_KGyxyAro3RhPDvPnqIs3KtdYqf4

[ski6jones]

"Batteries not included."

[chaloux]

This is fantastic, but the batteries and management system needs to be included or have options to choose from for it to be viable. Otherwise it's just a really Fing cool drive system that's not usable. I'm 100% for and committed to electric powered "stuff" but we really need to make progress on the storage side of things. I don't see lithium as the future, but understand that there's continuous and small breakthroughs that happen all the time and unfortunately aren't big enough for a large company to commit to because another improvement is just around the corner. Personally, I think in a few years, maybe as little as ten, there will be a massive storage and output advancement that will enable the phasing out of combustion engines. Electricity is absolutely the future.

[ForrestGump]

As an example, Conversion systems with the electric motor, battery packs, and controller for vintage cars are starting at about $40k. I'm not sure how good of a repower option that is for most people right now.

[BraceMaker]

@chaloux what with the absolute crap modern engines have become the ICE is obsoleting itself due to being poorly made before anything else.

[Bruce_Butterfield]

I’m 100% for electric powered “stuff” too! We only need coal, natural gas, nuclear or hydro power plants to provide the electricity for all our cool “stuff”!

As an aside, I do think the Tesla motor would be an interesting option, I just wonder about the available torque at operational rpm for the big jumpers.

[Stevie Boy]

The after market version of most things is not ideal, as with the EV,s they are better if they are designed and built as a new product from the ground up, I suppose slightly different with a boat, but the biggest obstacle has got to be the weight of the batteries.

[aupatking]

Until EControls puts out some kind of interface with an electric engine it’s really just a mild curiosity to me. How many, and what batteries are required, and what else? Where do they all go? Some could be put where the fuel tank currently sits, but due to weight, I don’t think I’d want them all there and I don’t know if amperage loss due to them not all being in one “battery bank” would be an issue.It’s an interesting thought, but much like the early days of solar on houses, it would take 30 years to pay for itself. At least that’s how it looks

[BraceMaker]

@aupatking I feel the opposite I want someone else to develop the control for EV boats and then compete. How cool would that be to have some tournaments pulled ZO gas and some pulled not ZO electric.

[swc5150]

After never thinking I'd buy an EV, I bought a Tesla for my wife last month and am now a believer. Considering it literally drove us home from dinner Saturday night, I'm sure programming a ZO style speed control would not be a difficult undertaking, should market demand come about.

[Golfguy]

Electricity and water are poor partners. Just look at the flooding in Fl. recently.

[Than_Bogan]

@Golfguy Unrelated situation.Wait 'til you hear about the tech where I spray highly volatile toxic fluid and then create 100 explosions per second...

Out of its proper context, any source of significant power is dangerous.

[Golfguy]

@Than_Bogan True, and batteries are more out of their proper context than ICE. I will take a 122 year old technology any time. Just saying.https://dot.la/why-evs-are-catching-fire-after-hurricane-ian-2658412136.html

[BraceMaker]

@Golfguy ever seen a bilge explosion? Might be new tech but when has that ever scared people off.

[dleenhouts]

@Golfguy that kind of FUD & backwards thinking gets you back to not only a horse or walking 100% of the time, but also trading your phone in for a telegraph, your toilet for a hole in the yard, a block of ice in a closet instead of a fridge, & most relevantly a sailboat instead of a ski boat.

When you're "just saying" it means you skipped the important step of "thinking before you speak".

[Than_Bogan]

Hm now these reactions swing too far the other way imo. There is truth to any new tech bringing new and different issues. Old tech is "the devil you know" and that has positives.However, the specific concern about lakes and batteries is mostly misplaced.

[GaryJanzig]

Check out the hub motors on the Lordstown Endurance pickup truck. Stack 3 or 4 of them together there would be plenty of power. More space available for the cooling system and batteries. They are 150 HP each. I am sure they could be configured for marine use. Take out the brakes and they will be even smaller. The technology is there, but more adaptations are needed. With current technology it takes 100 pounds of batteries to store the same amount of potential energy as 1 gallon of gas which is about 5 pounds.

[03RLXi]

Batteries are what's causing the current delays in uptake of EVs. Capacity and rate of charge. The electric motors, controls, etc are all well and truly sorted, ready to go, reliable, etc. Once storage capacity and charge is solved the only delay will be build delays. Boats for sure will lag cars due to supply constraints but they will change too, just a bit later. Change will be much quicker than many think. Many industries have found that out (Kodak, fax, car map books, etc)

[Bruce_Butterfield]

@03RLXi ” Once storage capacity and charge is solved”

And there is the rub. The devil is in the details and I have seen very little info that either of those issues will improve significantly anytime soon.

Maybe I’m wrong but going from horses to cars is several orders of magnitude simpler than making EVs comparable overall to ICEs

[Bruce_Butterfield]

For the safety issues, yep the lithium battery fires after being submerged are a huge issue. But for anyone who has seen close up what a 5 gallon can of gas does when lit off is not an experience you are likely to forget.

Understanding the potential risks and mitigating as much as practical goes a long way for any technology. But you can never mitigate human stupidity.

[BraceMaker]

@Bruce_Butterfield what would a Tesla do if it was underwater.... consistently. Not like submerged in a flood in a car but a sunk boat. Any reason a sunk boat wouldn't be relatively inert?

[03RLXi]

How hard it was to change horse to car, film to digital, fax to email, etc would differ depending on who was looking at the challenge. I expect many of those involved in the existing would have thought they had years of dominance only to discover their dominance rapidly declined.

Inboards boats use engines essentially sourced from cars so we can be pretty certain ski boats will lag behind car electrification, but how long is uncertain. Early adopters will pay mega bucks, those who wait a while less premium, then e it EV, hydrogen, biofuel or whatever will become normal and sticking with the old ICE tech will become the expensive option. Cars quickly became cheaper than horses, digital cheaper than film, email less than fax etc

[Than_Bogan]

@03RLXi Yep. I personally am guessing we're not quite at "that moment" yet for pure electric power train, but I have almost no doubt that the moment is coming. Less-environmentally-terrible electricity generation has improved very rapidly recently, but battery technology continues to advance painfully slowly. Turns out its not that easy to compete with the energy storage of dead dinosaurs :).My read of the history that repeats again and again is there is a relatively long period where the new way seems "not quite ready" and then all of a sudden it becomes hard to remember the old way!

[dleenhouts]

While folks are arguing over whether it's possible & profitable & all that nonsense, they already did it.

https://ingenityelectric.com/models/nautique-gs22e/

[DW]

@Than_Bogan - the melodious sound of those 100 explosions per second coming from an LS7, BBC, SBC, Porsche Flat 6, Ferrari V-12, Cosworth DFV, Offy, Allison V1710, etc. will be sorely missed when no longer making music.

[aupatking]

@BraceMaker my point is the current speed control system for tournaments is not yet usable for the electric conversion options, so I’m not currently interested, at least not seriously interested. Why would I even consider converting my boat to something I can’t get tournament type practice behind?@swc5150 EControls spent years developing Zero Off and it still gets development. They figured out a dead steady train pull was doable, but pretty brutal.I’d love to see more companies in the market but until we get Elon Musk addicted to slalom skiing, my bet is we won’t get the best possible solution any time soon

[BraceMaker]

@dleenhouts the argument is batteries are ballast so the penalty is less for wake sports and then the main market for such boats is places like Austria or Switzerland where the fuel premium is murder.

@aupatking that's the easy bit you take a factory Morse control throttle right to a potentiometer with PP stargazer cable drive manually controlling the potentiometer. I'm just not sure if econtrols or PP has anything about that in their agreement.

[jpwhit]

@BraceMaker, I was sitting here trying to think of a worse way to do speed control for an electric boat, but you've got me stumped with that one. That would take a powertrain where you have near instantaneous electronic control of massive torque, and negate all of it through a bunch of mechanical components.

[Jody_Seal]

been reading about marine hybrid systems coming online. mostly for bigger slower boats and of course diesel hybrid. still the biggest hurdle is the sheer weight of the batteries needed for these applications. a light set of batteries #1400 pounds....

[BraceMaker]

@jpwhit didn't we agree we don't actually want instantaneous power? That when ZO came out they held "too tight" to the speed?

Also once you advance the throttle to whatever set speed you want then the throttle and its cable aren't part of the system that's just a fixed aspect and the servo changes the set point.

Every single EV swap I've seen has used this sort of set up so I'm not sure what would be wrong with it from that perspective.

[jpwhit]

@BraceMaker the way ZO feels is due to the details of their control algorithm. Not because of how quickly they can change power settings. And instantaneous control of torque doesn't just apply to adding torque, it equally applies to reducing torque.

[RAWSki]

agree with @Jody_Seal the weight is more of an issue in 3 event boats vs a surf barge where play times are short and the group on board might be fine with dock re-charging 3-4 times a day.If an electric tournament boat were to come soon a hydrogen fuel cell could work well. Who wouldnt want to ski behind the new Zeppelin-Ski-Craft!??

[Jody_Seal]

@RAWSki The wet-Zepplin 200