They’re working with some boat manufacturers to do complete boat deals for 30 grand or less, but it’s still firmly in the high end for the “outboard on a 2-6 person boat” crowd. A good new outboard in the 20-50 HP range runs a few thousand dollars to start, and marine gas costs add up quick the Pure motor comes in a combo deal with the charger system and one battery pack for $16,500 (additional packs cost about $8,000). There’s still a good amount of sticker shock. The people for whom electric isn’t an option will quickly realize that, while the others will find it increasingly hard to resist the idea. If you’re fishing or just cruising around a lake, it’ll last you all day.

And if like most boaters you’re only going to ever go a few miles per trip, the range isn’t an issue. If you’re willing to spend some money for a better product, then cost isn’t as much of an issue. The only real advantage left to gas is initial cost and range. The benefits, after all, are easy to enumerate: It’s silent, which is great for fishing or social boating It fills up for a buck or two at any outlet It’s extremely low maintenance, having vastly fewer parts than a tiny gas engine And of course it doesn’t spew fumes and particulates into the water and air like most of the depressingly dirty motors currently in use. “The tipping point comes when you have a critical mass of people for whom a good selfish choice is to go electric.” “We can’t count on people picking our product to save the world,” Rebele said. But our investors are buying into a leader in the electrification of an entirely new sector of transportation that hasn’t gotten the same attention as cars and trucks.” “We developed our entire battery pack architecture, and it took - it’s obvious at this point - millions of dollars to get where we are. “You have to bet that this small market will become a big market,” he said. Rebele kept the company going with his own money and a bit of low-key funding in 2016, though he admits now that it was something of a leap of faith. “The Model S had not yet been released the plan of making boats electric was not really fundable,” he told me.

It’s pretty much a drop-in replacement for an outboard you’d use on a 10-20 foot boat meant for fishing or puttering around the lake, though the price tag looks a little different.įounder and CEO Andy Rebele started the company in 2011, and it turns out they had shown up a bit early to the party. Pure’s outboard works much like a traditional one, but runs on a suitcase-sized battery pack and is, of course, almost silent except for the sound of the turbulence. Pure Watercraft hopes that its electric outboard motor can replace a normal gas one for most boating needs under 50 HP - and it just raised $23.4M to hit the throttle. Electric power only started making sense for land vehicles about ten years ago, but now the technology is ready to make the jump into the water.

Consumer reports on outboard motors