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Electric boat maker Candela is moving closer to cruising speed with $25 million in new funding and the first commercial deployment of its new P-12 ferry in New Zealand. The company has global ambitions for its highly efficient boats, and has completed and delivered dozens of them – a significant number in the industry!
Candela has been slowly increasing the size of its ships for years, starting with the smaller C-7 and C-8 (noting the length in metres) – of which, as of this week, it has produced a total of 70. The P-12, a ferry design that can hold up to 30 passengers, debuted late last year.
Just last week, the P-12 was assigned its first mission: People move around Lake Manapouri in New Zealand, a scenic destination but also, more importantly, the location of the country’s largest hydroelectric power station. Now employees at that station can get to work via clean boats instead of driving, which the companies estimate will save about 240 tons of emissions annually. It’s a start, but it will also help keep the lake clean and calm.
International interest in these boats is also evident in the participation of Groupe Beneteau, a more than a century-old boat company that manufactures thousands of vessels annually, in the financing round. CEO Bruno Thevoillon expressed in the press release that investing in Candela makes sense as part of the company’s “environmental transformation goals, expanding the range of innovative solutions for more sustainable boating.”
Many older boat companies are embracing electric motors and next-generation technologies; I spoke with the head of another major manufacturer, Brunswick’s Dave Foulkes, at CES about this. He said the collaboration is fruitful because small, growing companies need income and access, while larger companies need technology ready for deployment. Like any other industry, you have to know when to buy and when to build, and the big boat companies are happy to buy or invest.
Candela boats use hydrofoils with bottom-mounted electric motors to effectively fly above the surface of the water once a certain speed is exceeded, dramatically reducing energy consumption — a historically and conceptually sticking point for electric boats. This approach requires a strong autopilot to keep it balanced, and despite their assertions, I wonder how they handle log collisions, but overall the advantages seem to outweigh the disadvantages.
I drove one during the summer in Seattle (I keep a close eye on the logs, which are fairly common in Elliott Bay) and wished they would replace the gas-packed fast passenger ferries with P-12s. Candela isn’t the only one following this market either; Navier is also trying to appeal to coastal communities with quiet, energy-efficient transportation and is currently transporting Stripe employees around the Bay Area. While Zin Boats has been quiet for some time, it is also working to identify markets for the next version of its vessel.
The $25 million round, as mentioned, was led by Benito, with participation from EQT Ventures, Ocean Zero LLC, and Kan Dela.
dad.
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