146 karma · joined August 20, 2020
The price stems from a high production cost, the whole boat is built like an aircraft, in carbon fiber (the designer used to work at Eurocopter) to be as light as possible. The weight of the hull and deck is about 240 kg. So our main goal for the future is to reduce the costs - by a lot. But think about C-7 as the Tesla Roadster. But our foiling ferry for the city of Stockholm will be launched next year, and then people using the Stockholm public transport system can go foiling for 2€.
At Candela, we use hydrofoils to reduce the energy usage, to be able to make an electric boat that has long range at high speeds, above 20 knots. Conventional hulls are hard to electrify since they need so much power. However, we use a new type of hydrofoil: fully submerged hydrofoils, that are more efficient but needs active stabilization from computers and software. The on-board Flight controller adjusts the hydrofoils at 100 hZ, or 100 times per second, which makes for a craft that won't pitch or heave. This tech was available in the 1970's - it's basically a very similar Flight controller as in an inherently unstable jet fighter like F-16 - but thanks to drones and smartphones, the price reduction of sensors makes it possible for us to offer this tech in a leisure boat.
And - we're scaling our electric hydrofoil tech to commercial ships. Right now, we're starting the construction of the world's first foiling electric shuttle ship for the city of Stockholm. At its launch next year, Candela P-30 will be the fastest electric ship ever at 30 knots, as well as most energy-efficient ship ever built. Energy usage is 1/10th of conventional diesel ships. Check it out here:
We then use the outputs to control the angle of attack, along the longitudinal axis of the foil, essentially twisting it. The R&D that has gone into making this work reliably enough for a consumer product is our secret sauce.
Check out our videos from the Caribbean and a comparison with an 8 meter aluminum boat in a choppy archipelago condition.
Can we foil in every single wave height there is? Abosolutely not, but our boats outperform regular boats in comfort in weathers where you'd normally bring out your 8 meter daycruiser/open boat.
It's also worth remembering that in rough seas, you can go down from the foils with no issue. You just cut the efficiency down to regular boat levels...
Remember that boating is very locally adapted, with many boat models from Sweden never being exported to other regions, due to regional preferences and sea conditions.
However, the foil can take quite a beating.
Regarding commercialization, which is a great question in itself, our experience tells us that it's due to: 1. It's hard to build controllable foils, especially in a "miniaturized" size like a 8 meter boat. 2. the technology to enable sufficient speed of electronic foil control hasn't been cheap nor good enough prior to the advent of consumer drones & smartphones.
Our boats consume roughly 1 kwh per NM, from the grid. Swedish electricity generation emits about 15g of CO2 per kWh. That's even better than 99%.
Even in the US, in 2013, with 500g of CO2 per kWh, the emissions from a Candela are still 85% lower. And at least 99% lower locally in the water where the boat is being used.
It would be fantastic if all boating was done by sails, but saying that's the solution is like saying Tesla shouldn't have innovated on the automobile because there is already a technology for moving around on roads: bikes.
Do you suggest that nothing should be done about emissions on the water?
As you mention, the deep V hull cuts waves pretty well, but we also have algorithms monitoring the position of the boat in 3D space, looking for signals that indicate a treacherous seastate or an unfavorable position of the boat. This means that we won't do the nose dives that you see in the sailing videos.
Be sure that we have landed unexpectedly quite a few times to get to where we are! :D
To sum it up, when you are accustomed to flying with the Seven and you know where the limits are in terms of wave handling, then it's no different from riding in a regular boat in choppy seas or high waves. Unruly seas require alert sailors, in all types of boats.
We're publishing a short video soon, purely focused on running through waves from large passenger ferries. Sub to our youtube to know when.
A 22 kW charger, like a semi fast one you'd find on the road, which is about a 1/5th of the strength of a first gen Tesla Supercharger, would fill our battery 0-100% in 1.5 hours.
We could have gone for trying to make people quit buying, using and spending on boats, but that seemed a lot harder than creating a better alternative to regular boats.
5 years of R&D, sweat, tears and big load of broken foils later, we are in full production with a boat that reduces local emissions by 99%, compared to fossil boats.
Sure, it's perfectly doable to put hydrofoils on any type of hull, especially passive hydrofoils. We tried, and it wasn't especially nice, nor efficient.
The trick is to use fully submerged ones. But those are much harder to keep stable, as they are inherently unstable. That's were our secret sauce is. We can control them through software similar to what you see in drones. Also, we've created the mechanical and structural components necessary for wave handling.
You won't find this type of innovation, especially the software, in any other boat in production. That's the new stuff.
Do you also think that a Tesla Model 3, transporting 5 adults, but weighing in at above 1500kg is a bad idea?