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Tesla boat

Lewie

By Lewie
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Lewie

Lewie

Posted
Posted (edited)

Alrighty

So, for anybody that doesn’t know I have a lake cabin I live at for the better part of the summer. I got to thinking that with all the boats+gas that gets guzzled....would a Tesla boat be a viable idea? It certainly would have the power (slightly modified tesla motor) you’d have to imagine it’d be cheap (just one motor+batteries and what-not) but how much would the added weight of the batteries affect the boat’s performance? You guys are a lot smarter then me so I’d really like to see what you all come up with. I'm really talking about boats that would be used on lakes, ea. leisure craft for cruising around, pulling skiers+tubes etc. 

-Lewie

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mikegarrison

mikegarrison

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Tesla actually exhibited a boat in 1898. It was radio-controlled and electrically powered. The wire-guided torpedo had already been invented, and Tesla was trying to sell people that you didn't need the wire. (Of course, radio signals don't work very well on submerged torpedoes.)

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cubinator

cubinator

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Of course, the major air pollution comes from the big shipping boats. For those it's more difficult to pack enough energy in a battery at low enough mass. It would be really nice if these could be made electric someday.

Edited by cubinator
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GuessingEveryDay

GuessingEveryDay

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Posted

Uh...

There's a startup by former SpaceX employees making an electric speed boat. They're the ARC boats.

https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3143106/andreessen-backed-start-sell-us300000-electric-boats-built-former#:~:text=Arc%2C a start-up with,%2C 475-horsepower pleasure craft.&text=Chief Executive Officer Mitch Lee,passion for sustainability and nature.

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HvP

HvP

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Just in the last few days I have seen articles about a startup group formed by former SpaceX engineers to market commercially produced electric speedboats.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/aug/01/ex-spacex-engineers-commercial-electric-speedboat

But otherwise, all-electric boats of different scales are already a thing. Both Denmark and Norway have been using electric ferries in a few ports for a while now

The Swedish company X-Shore is now selling their all-electric Eelex pleasure craft in the US.

And New Electric in Amsterdam can convert a variety of different boats to all-electric operation for custom orders.

So it's certainly feasible for someone with the means and knowhow.

(edit: partially ninja'd by @GuessingEveryDay, hah)

Edited by HvP
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Nuke

Nuke

Posted
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boats are pigs. topping off a small skiff is bloody expensive. 

no reason electric cannot be used, but where seawater and batteries are concerned, you always have a few safety issues and problems with corrosion that cars just dont have. the need to keep your batteries in a water tight box will cause some cooling issues.  using seawater to cool the batteries directly seems like a bad idea, so you would run a non corrosive coolant and if you have a metal hull you could use it for thermal rejection and wont even need to bother with salt water loop.  but id consider all these as solved problems as we were using batteries in submarines as far back as ww1. 

scaling it up for large scale shipping seems impractical though if you look at the ginormous diesel engines that container ships use. space for batteries is going to eat up cargo space and lots of it. but the transition is likely more plausible than electric passenger planes. ships with a lot of unused deck space (like passenger ferries) can also pack a lot of solar panel area which can be used to extend range and recharge while in port. biggest issue might be scaling up production of large format cells. 

Edited by Nuke
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insert_name

insert_name

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Posted
54 minutes ago, Nuke said:

ships with a lot of unused deck space (like passenger ferries) can also pack a lot of solar panel area which can be used to extend range and recharge while in port. biggest issue might be scaling up production of large format cells. 

You might also be able to use wind turbines for some power, or just go for a more direct approach and use a sail

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wumpus

wumpus

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5 hours ago, cubinator said:

Of course, the major air pollution comes from the big shipping boats. For those it's more difficult to pack enough energy in a battery at low enough mass. It would be really nice if these could be made electric someday.

Except there is a long history of using other renewable energy sources to move ships.  Namely wind.  While entirely wind [commercial] ships appears unlikely, it seems foolish to avoid mounting a modern "sail" on board a shipping container ship.

I'm equally perplexed on the idea of an electric ship (ship being something that crosses oceans.  I live near Lake Ontario, and I suspect an Electric ship-sized vessel to Toronto might make sense).  Trains might work with the diesel (or whatever) engine using the generator-motor combination as some sort of transmission, but a propeller hardly needs such a thing.  I'm not aware that ship-sized engines need anything moderating their propellers.  Probably the only critical thing (assuming you can't get them to mount sails) is to try to keep them from using the dregs from a refinery.

Electricity (like hydrogen) isn't a fuel source.  It is a means of transmission.  And you don't have very far to transmit in a ship (or more specifically a ship's engine room).

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DDE

DDE

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17 hours ago, cubinator said:

Of course, the major air pollution comes from the big shipping boats.

Because they use literal refuse for their fuel. New standards were supposed to be in place since 2020, but I think the shipping industry has been able to quietly flunk them.

It was supposed to cause an apocalyptic fuel shortage, after all.

17 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

AFAIK diesel submarines are boats that use batteries for a while each trip. 

Yeah, talk about old technology. The Japanese are making the next big leap by fielding Li-ion batteries on combat submarines. That spares them the finicky air-independent powerplants used on may other diesel-electrics.

11 hours ago, wumpus said:

Trains might work with the diesel (or whatever) engine using the generator-motor combination as some sort of transmission, but a propeller hardly needs such a thing.  I'm not aware that ship-sized engines need anything moderating their propellers.  Probably the only critical thing (assuming you can't get them to mount sails) is to try to keep them from using the dregs from a refinery.

Well, electric transmission was popular in the 1920s before decent gearboxes were available for battleship-sized turbines. It's resurfaced on submarines (pun intended), including on nuclear-powered ones where the lack of mechanical noises is paramount. I know a few decigns switch to electric for for creep mode, and the French boomers are entirely electric.

I also recall that (Russian) nuclear icebreakers are all-electric. Not really sure why.

There's also an apparent trend of giving surface warships a battery-powered "silent running" mode. Then of course there's the IEP concept of dynamically switching the power loads between engines, hotel needs (on a cruise liner) or a hypothetical railgun or laser.

Edited by DDE
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MKI

MKI

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So a battery/electric powered boat would probably want to get its energy from renewables, like wind.

We could also just cut out the middleman and a ton of infrastructure and power the boat using wind.... IE a sailboat ;P

 

 

 

 

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StrandedonEarth

StrandedonEarth

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Not quite "boat mode" but...

More on topic, there are a few battery powered passenger ferries around here. Not sure if they have a solar canopy.

As for skipping directly back to sails, that's fine for the deep sea, but leaves something to be desired for harbor maneuverability. Now if the sail had some sort of PV fabric or construction to charge the maneuvering thrusters...

Edited by StrandedonEarth
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magnemoe

magnemoe

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Posted
2 hours ago, DDE said:

Because they use literal refuse for their fuel. New standards were supposed to be in place since 2020, but I think the shipping industry has been able to quietly flunk them.

It was supposed to cause an apocalyptic fuel shortage, after all.

Yeah, talk about old technology. The Japanese are making the next big leap by fielding Li-ion batteries on combat submarines. That spares them the finicky air-independent powerplants used on may other diesel-electrics.

Well, electric transmission was popular in the 1920s before decent gearboxes were available for battleship-sized turbines. It's resurfaced on submarines (pun intended), including on nuclear-powered ones where the lack of mechanical noises is paramount. I know a few decigns switch to electric for for creep mode, and the French boomers are entirely electric.

I also recall that (Russian) nuclear icebreakers are all-electric. Not really sure why.

There's also an apparent trend of giving surface warships a battery-powered "silent running" mode. Then of course there's the IEP concept of dynamically switching the power loads between engines, hotel needs (on a cruise liner) or a hypothetical railgun or laser.

Yes electric transmissions is an thing, trains tend to use it because all the wheels makes it more practical, ice breakers, probably for redundancy and thrusters. 
The problem with electrical transmissions back in the 1920s was it was bulkier and also the problem with sea water and high power electricity on an battleship who had to be designed to take damage and it was new technology back then. 

Trend for  modern surface warships use an combination of diesel engines and gas turbines. Going electric here might make sense rater than having inactive shafts or complex gear boxes. also peak power use on warships, electrical catapults and lasers and railguns in the future. 

Silent mode for warships sounds like something for sub hunting or perhaps mine sweeping.
Know its an push for hybrids for stuff like AFW, self propelled artillery and armored cars in the military, they tend to spend most of their time stationary but sensors, communication and guns are still active. 
Fuel cost at an remote base in southern Afghanistan is high and you can use this to power rest of the base. And yes sneaking up on your enemy on electric works better. 

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magnemoe

magnemoe

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3 hours ago, MKI said:

So a battery/electric powered boat would probably want to get its energy from renewables, like wind.

We could also just cut out the middleman and a ton of infrastructure and power the boat using wind.... IE a sailboat ;P

Sailboats works well. Sail ships has the problem with the square cube law your volume increase x^3 your sail coverage with x^2. 
Largest sailing ships ever was SS Great Eastern launched back in 1858, however sail area on it was just 1686 m^2 who is low making it an backup system. 
Club Med 2 is an smaller as in 386 passenger cruise ship with 2400 m^2 sail area, yes it looks like its an first class only ship as crew number is 214.

 It will not work if scaled up to modern cruise ships or container ships. 

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StrandedonEarth

StrandedonEarth

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Why yes, I do, and then never heard much more...

E: just read that link, and it seems that rotor sails are gaining traction as a means to significant fuel savings. Talk about throwing the shipping industry a curve ball.

Edited by StrandedonEarth
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Dientus

Dientus

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9 minutes ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Why yes, I do, and then never heard much more...

The way I understood it, the amount of power it took to spin them, could have been used to turn two screws instead more cheaply and more efficiently.

There were other aesthetic reasons, aandthe detractors even claimed they were dangerous having large spinning drums in the open. (I guess the whales don't count for the propellers)

 

Someone is taking this technology and actually improved on it to the point that it could very well be viable in my opinion.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/09/spinning-metal-sails-could-slash-fuel-consumption-emissions-cargo-ships

 

As to OPs original question, it really depends heavily on what it is they want a boat for. It'd be leisurely travel around the lake, or long endeavors across the ocean, there are currently pluses and minuses to both.

Edited by Dientus
English really is my first language LOL
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mikegarrison

mikegarrison

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16 hours ago, wumpus said:

Trains might work with the diesel (or whatever) engine using the generator-motor combination as some sort of transmission, but a propeller hardly needs such a thing.  I'm not aware that ship-sized engines need anything moderating their propellers.

Hybrid electric drive ships are pretty common.

Edited by mikegarrison
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