We spotted some intriguing, new, German-made, electric outboards at the Seattle Boatshow last weekend. They reminded me of my embarassingly expensive, yet amazingly designed and engineered cordless drill from Festool. So what do you get for your German-engineered buck? Well, the smallest unit in the line includes a lithium-manganese battery pack in the head of the unit, and folds down to fit in its included waterproof backpack. That’s pretty neat…no external battery hookup for a trolling motor.
The maker claims very high efficiency for these drives, due to an electronically regulated AC motor, and a special prop design that takes advantage of the high torque characteristics. I don’t much doubt these claims, as this is similar technology to the jaw-dropping electric Tesla Roadster.
The larger motors use external lithium-manganese battery packs (though you can supply your own conventional lead-acid batteries), and range up to about the equivalent of a 6 horsepower gasoline outboard, although with more torque.
The Torqeedos are quite new to the market, and I have heard some grumbling about the high-price of this innovative tech. The prices I’ve found so far were in British pounds, with the smallest unit around $1,500, and the largest about $2,500, which is more expensive than an equivalent horsepower four stroke outboard. Still, I think it would be pretty awesome to cruise around without gasoline and hardly a sound.
If a Torqeedo rep would like to get in touch with us, we’d love to do a video demo, and see if it would get a nine foot RIB up on a plane.
Link: Torqeedo
