Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News! An electric hydrofoiling Candela C-8 crossed the Baltic Sea about a week ago. The boat went from Stockholm to the Finnish autonomous region of Åland. As a stunning example of the low operational costs ... [cont...
While the much lower fuel cost has to be a bit of a shocker (we all know EVs are more efficient and cheaper to operate, but not 95% cheaper), the bigger surprise has to be how much more convenient the electric boat was in a certain key way. “We actually had range anxiety, but not for the Candela. The irony is that the photographer’s gasoline-powered chase boat had to refuel six times during the trip, while we only charged three times,” said Gustav Hasselskog.
213kWh feels like quite a lot of juice. Admittedly, I usually don't go at planing speeds.
I have an 80Ah lead-acid battery to power the electric trolling motor on my inflatable dinghy. That's 80A*12V = 0.96kWh. That gives me 5-10Nm range depending on speed. My dinghy would sink with 213kWh on board.
My 7 tonne sailboat uses ~2l/h of diesel at twice the speed. 213kWh of lead-acid would double the weight.
I've dealt with storing energy from solar for a long time now, and from the deepest part of my heart: fuck lead acid batteries. The only thing they have going for them is being able to charge below freezing. But they're shit in every other way, especially weight.