Former rocket engineers from SpaceX, Elon Musk’s company, have joined the race to build the first commercial electric hydrofoil. Arc Boat, whose employees have gained experience working at SpaceX, has raised $4.25 million in funding to finance the development of a hydrofoil that will cost around $300,000. According to the Guardian, the first model of the Arc One hydrofoil will be on sale by the end of the year.
– We want to build electric boats because of the impact of conventional gasoline or diesel boats on the environment – said Mitch Lee, CEO of Arc Boat, adding that they started working in February of this year from scratch.
Lee founded the company in collaboration with Ryan Cook, a former lead mechanical engineer at SpaceX. In general, all employees of Arc Boat have some prior experience working at SpaceX.
The Arc hydrofoil, which will be able to reach speeds of 40 km/h, joins the hydrofoils of numerous other startups racing to be the first to create an electric-powered hydrofoil and launch their mass production. As Lee pointed out, electric boats make more sense because they are faster, cheaper, and quieter, and they are also easier to handle and maintain. As always, the first models will be somewhat more expensive, but later there will be cheaper variants. This technology could also be applied to larger vessels like ferries in the future.
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