4 ms·

so, what's the purpose of this thing. Because taking out "fossil fuels" of a senseless activity just to use up 20% less of our liveable environment, seems -ehm-

• kgilpin 6y ago
  People need to enjoy the outdoors in order to care about preserving it.
  • fock 6y ago
    do you really "enjoy outdoors" with a speedboat"? A simple sailing boat has a fraction of the foodprint and you probably can see a lot more of the outdoors. Will you spot wildlife at the coast riding this: probably not.
    • jschwartzi 6y ago
      Sure, if you can catch any wind.
      • fock 6y ago
        maybe that's also an important lesson for some people to learn. man is not almighty and part of a complex ecosystem.
• punnerud 6y ago
  Tesla started with Tesla Roadster (old version)
  • fock 6y ago
    and now they have their 2 metric tonnes driving batteries consuming coal. Whew. Maybe we should think about systemic change.
• Candelaboat 6y ago
  That's a great question. Purpose. Even though some might consider boating a senseless activity, people around the world enjoy it dearly. Boating is simply one of the world's biggest outdoor activities. 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.
  • fock 6y ago
    so in what wonderland are you charging your boat with this 99%-less CO2-grid? And guess what, boating could arguably also be done with a 100% reduced emission footprint. It's called sailing. Btw: what did I miss that owning and operating a boat is one of the biggest outdoor activities (especially small motorboats?)? As far as the tech goes: it looks interesting, but safe the "we are making the world a better place" part.
    • Candelaboat 6y ago
      Gasoline when burned emits 2.3kgs of CO2 One can confidently assume 1.5 liters per nautical mile for an 8 meter petrol boat at speeds above 20 knots. That's 3450 grams per NM. 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?
      • fock 6y ago
        > at speeds above 20knots maybe speed is a problem here. and if you are slow, it's a lot less. Also burning at least 50€ (I'm not sure about tax exemptions for nautical fuel, but in Europe 1.5€/l is very likely) for a short trip of ~30km back and forth (which you could hike in a day - though not on water) underlines that whatever you consider "boating, the mass hobby" is something done (to great environmental cost) by a very, very small minority. And yes I'm all for taxing the people with enough money to burn today so that they won't have to do that tomorrow - and reducing emissions of global sea trade as well.
• mcguire 6y ago
  There is nothing half so much worth doing as messing about in boats. Mostly, that's throwing money into a hole in the water, but...