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family friendly solar boat
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Written on: 01 July 2010 [16:09]
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skip53
Topic creator
registered since: 01.07.2010
Posts: 2
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hey guys i found this nice boat on my search for news about EVs I know I know it's not a car but I think it's still cool and shows progress. is someone of you boating as well? it's a 7 meter day-boat, it has solar panels and is equipped with AGM batteries, reaches up to 8 hours of sailing even without the solar panel. what do you think? article: http://evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=1886 producer's website: www.aequusboats.com |
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Written on: 11 July 2010 [12:22]
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ecoadmin
Administrator
registered since: 20.07.2007
Posts: 583
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Hi there, interesting vessel. I actually rented once a solar boat myself and its as cool as driving electric. No noise, no smell, just great  Here is a pic of the boat:  It even looks quite good and offers space for taking a bath in the sun...On top of that it comes with a shower, fresh water supply, fridge, berth for two...I had to check out their website to believe it. If I would be a lover of water activities (boating, sailing etc...) this would be a hot favorite. You can call it your own for USD 70'000 / 58'000 Euros. What surprises me is that they use lead acid batteries. Was it to keep the price lower or do lead acid batteries have other advantages when used in boats such as extra weight (for stability augmentation)?? But guess that would be an easy one to solve by just adding more beer into the fridge Twike 890
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Written on: 16 July 2010 [14:12]
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skip53
Topic creator
registered since: 01.07.2010
Posts: 2
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i contacted them because i was curious  i got a nice brochure ^^ well they use the agm batteries because it is the bes solution for the intented use they say. if you use the boat quite often around 50 times a year the batteries wont need a change for 8 years. they have a capacity of 400 deep cycles but a deep cycle means that you discharge the batteries fully...which is sailing for 8 hours without a break...i think this will be hard to do. with less intense use they have much longer lifecycles. i also asked about li-ion batteries but they say that they are not adapted for this kind of use or better it would cost around 20k extra to fit the boat with a battery bank. i added the brochure they sent me ah yeah and they organise testing days...thats what their facebook page says (http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Aequus-70-The-Solar-Boat/123340287710171?ref=ts) but i guess it's not that easy to go over to france ^^ |
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Written on: 29 October 2010 [13:35]
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OwningElectricCar
 
registered since: 16.01.2010
Posts: 31
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Electric boats come in all shapes and sizes and they are becoming very popular. At the bottom of the range you get the electric outboard motor. For $150 you can get yourself a little electric outboard motor with controller - just add a battery and you're away! For small craft, they are a lot more convenient and cleaner than a small gasoline outboard. They're also cheaper - an equivalent gasoline engine outboard would probably cost you around $500. I've got an electric outboard which I use with my inflatable dingy. Its great. Nice and smooth, powerful enough for pottering around on lakes and rivers, and being silent you can get right up close to the wildlife who would otherwise keep away because of the noise of the outboard motor. The only problem with electric powered craft is charging them back up again: lugging around heavy batteries is not easy, so running them on solar power is a great solution. You could get yourself a small second hand cabin cruiser without a motor for $1000, add a $150 motor, a $75 battery and a $500 solar array with controller and have a cracking little river boat that would be self charging. It would end up costing you a similar amount to buy to a cheap boat with gasoline engine and give you so much more in return. Hmmm. I'm tempting myself here! Author of the book 'Owning an Electric Car' - http://www.OwningElectricCar.com
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