Big News from Yeargin?

[horkn]

Watt?, an electric ski boat?

LOL

as to what they sound like, a lot of whirring is what any electric vehicle sounds like. They may subdue it a bit compared to an all electric bike or similar, but it will sound like a big ol cordless drill.

I say kudos to CC for making this , and I can't wait until they use / get better smaller batteries that can hold more of a charge.

[Mikeski]

Just coming back to this - did anyone else have that feeling that this is an oddly configured v-drive or am I just interpreting the photos incorrectly.

No, looks to me like it was more of a "let's just use what we have" scenario and they needed 2 of them so they had to come up with a gearbox.

This picture shows the right way to do it.

[Plave]

Would it need a gearbox if it was a single electric motor?

[chris196]

I was just looking at wikipedia for information on power generation, and found out this. The generating capacity of the generator-pumps by Grand Coulée is 314 MW (mega watts). This is the amount of electricity they make when water is flowing down them. To pump the water up through them, they consume about 600 MW.

Of course, in a storage & retrieval system you never achieve 100% efficiency. As you so aptly pointed out before, there is no perpetual motion machine.
The Grand Coulee system seems very ineffecient. I really don't know anything about it. Maybe when in pump mode, there is an excess of energy so pumping efficiency is not an issue. You would really need to know the design parameters and goals to evaluate it, which I certainly don't know.

I feel safe saying that newer systems (whatever they may be) for energy storage will attain a higher efficiency.

[j2nh]

Batteries are the key and we are a long way from realizing that goal but it is not for lack of trying. I read an interesting story about Panasonic, who at present are leading the charge, developing a silicon anode that is capable of increasing efficiencies by put up to 30%. They still have to come up with the cathode. Further challenges are high efficiency batteries not being suited for high discharge rate applications and the swelling that occurs during charging. Then there is the cost. The Volt, is way overpriced for its application and is still using lead acetate battery technology. Maybe someday but not anytime soon.

[swc5150]

That's right!!! With gas rising, there are times, split seconds really, that I wish this was a hybrid. But I'm jolted back to reality in half a nano sec.

No doubt, you don't want to take the horns of that bull!

[DanielC]

I guess in a way, this is a V-drive boat. It certainly is not direct drive. Did you all notice how open the center of the floor was?
Why two motors? I do not really know. One was not enough, and three was too many? Maybe two smaller motors was easier to locate, and balance. Maybe two motors are easier to cool, than one larger motor. Two motors give you some redundancy, in case one motor stops working.
One thing I do not think people are realizing is this. You need some sort of a support to withstand the forward thrust of the propeller shaft. You cannot depend on the motor bearings to take this load. A V-drive type gearbox is an excellent place to put a thrust bearing to hold this load.

[gride]

It has 205 hp and 635 ft lbs torque. You'd need tons of solar to charge it. Like way too many. I agree with mikeski that it's kinda crap. it's a concept boat. Thats why it looks all pretty. Also, this motor company seems pretty new.

[ClemsonDave]

According to the motor dev company, the two motors combine to 202hp and over 350lb ft. Hole shot close to a 196.

[etwman]

I can see where this is headed. 3000 lbs of batteries in the Air Nautiques for bigger wakes. Cool concept. Love the post about finding a way to recharge the boat on solar, that would be pretty slick.

[Erik]

I can see where this is headed. 3000 lbs of batteries in the Air Nautiques for bigger wakes. Cool concept. Love the post about finding a way to recharge the boat on solar, that would be pretty slick.

No Sir. Though you're not the first person to say HEY! - Batteries! Ballast! They wouldn't and couldn't do that. You're talking almost doubling the dry weight of the boat to get the kind of wake a wakeboarder would love. I don't really know what their thoughts are around this, but I think either:

1) The batteries have to get lighter (although, do we even know the weight of the batteries they put into this prototype?)

and/or

2) They will need to figure out a way to lighten the dry weight of each model to accommodate for the weight of the batteries - and maybe even considerations around where they live.

That's why I expect this to be in varying forms and prototypes for several years. 2015 is my guess. They need to get the boat + batteries + electric engines weight to be equal or even below that of the big V8 + boats now. That has to be an absolute monster of an engineering hurdle and probably a project with a super long tail.

Either way, in the future, my money is on ballast staying on production boats (be it water or something else). Both for wakeboarding heft, and side-to-side correction for 3-event - I'd say it stays.

[IMPACT-EV1]

misconceptions

First battery Tech is further along than you think, lithium ion is old tech and out dated all ready, you just need to know who the real players are, Lithium ion's don't hold a candle to lithium titanate.

Also in a hybrid the gas motor is just a huge generator and does no actual driving of the the vehicle the drive motors are used 100% of the time weather it be in 100% electric or hybrid mode.

regenerative braking to charge the pack what a major joke that is, can't and won't help the amount generated is so small you get maybe an extra minute of drive time from a 60-0 stop, why is it used? to stop the vehicle more efficently is why and why most hybrid don't use the system.

Why not one motor enstead of two, because then you'll have to cool the stator and add more weight and complexity. The motors are smaller so that the heat generated during operation is minimal and doesn't require cooling the stator like you have to with large Kw motors, you make them big enough you have to cool the rotor as well and that is a major trick to pull off.

And to the one suggesting that a couple of EV-1 motors waer used doesn't know what he's talking about, for one they are not extrenally grounded like the ones used on the SN-E also there are no cooling lines going to the drive motors either and they are about twice the size too.

and the R&D cost isn't as high as you think, there are off the self drive motors on the market all ready that will do a better job than what is currently used as well as better battery technology too, the most expensive part was the gear box and the gear sets with-in it.

[Laptom]

True, I think the R&D on this boat is really to the bare minimum. Perhaps 70k including the hull. In Swiss there are already a MC and Ski Nautique running on 100% electric and what I heard the costs of the motor´s and batteries where about 15k.
What I heard LTE and CC started with this in 2010, so with 2or3 persons a 6to8 months of work...

Still, very exciting news. Not about the technology, this is already excisting. But that a manufacture starts to use it!! Take it to the next level and bring it out on the marking for about 5k more than a standard Ski Nautique. Perhaps not in the US, but with the gasprices in the rest of the world this boat could be winner!! Good and nice job CC!! Be proud of it!

[Erik]

True, I think the R&D on this boat is really to the bare minimum. Perhaps 70k including the hull.

How in God's name are you coming up with that number?

Ok - look - Mr. day 1, post 1 member above your post clearly is someone in stealth mode, close to the project - so - somehow I lend it some credit. Don't know why, but I do. It sounds right. Something.

But Laptom... 70k? Are you saying it cost Correct Craft and its supplier a total budget of 70k to make this prototype? Because absolutely no way. Or, are you saying that you'd guess the "first customer shipment" of this tech boat will be 5k more than even a Team Edition and in the range of 70k? Again, absolutely no way - and that's years away - **** - they all but say those exact words in the video and announcement - even Mr. Yeargin's blog.

I do think it's exciting. I do think it is revolutionary. I DO NOT think it had a budget of 70k (counting person hours, custom parts, travel, meetings, design reviews, etc). That's nowhere near the budget I'd guess this would have allotted, and also far from what I think the first customer-ready boats will cost.

Can you clarify? I'm not trying to jump down your throat but seriously. As I see it, this wasn't a cheap undertaking in any way shape or form.

[IMPACT-EV1]

well I think you've read the comments wrong, he is making the point if it comes out for sale in the 70k range or basically 5k over existing model's price.

Cost for this project way down, you have extra help that the your paying them anyway so their over head is a wash in my book same with the boat so if you want to figure raw material cost so be it, the extra glass if they pulled a new mold then the cost goes up, but I doubt they did and it was a hand layup to modify the tub and tweek the stringers if needed but again doubt they would have to and would have used the existing dimensions for the transfer case. So you got 10-15k in a transfer case, 10k for the battery packs, controller and inverter, next You have LTS's motors most likely existing units as well just like the boat hull is, so it depends how you want to look at the cost, to me the labor to mod the hull is a wash all ready figured in existing overhead your paying the person all ready so who gives a crap if he's doing a special one off like the CCF boat was done or a production model doesn't change the daily out of pocket cost. So until you have a understanding what a pack cost and how cheap the motor can be built, don't think CC has pumped 100's of thousands of dollars into this project yes tens of thousands but no more than what could be recouped off the profits of a couple boats, smart business and day to day R&D your not devoloping anything new other than the package it's put in, the motor was all ready design they have been out for over twenty years, you can buy them off the shelf, the battery what's new about them nothing and even if they are partnered with a battery group the battery group is flipping the bill same way LTS is flipping the bill for the motor, controller and inverter so no the cost is minimal accross the board, shared risk shared rewards, that's how partnershiops work in the real world.