Launch of Arc One 500 hp – 370kW electric boat from Space X engineers
It is a big day for electric boats and boating as the much-talked-about Arc One is now officially on sale. The boat electric wake sport boat has a 500 hp (≈370kW) electric motor, 220kWh battery capacity and can hit a top speed of 40 mph (65 km/h).
From the Arc One website: “It’s now the most powerful electric watercraft commercially available, making today a milestone not just for Arc, but also for the nascent electric boating industry.”
The Arc One first came to the attention of Plugboats (and the world) less than a year ago, when Co-Founder Mitch Lee reached out to talk about the progress on his dream of building a high performance electric boat to equal or better the performance of gas drive models.
‘Hull of a boat is pretty similar to a rocket‘
Mitch grew up with water skiing as the family recreation, earned a degree in mechanical engineering, worked at Boeing, was part of a successful tech start-up, and then decided the time was right to pursue one of his life goals of doing something to reduce carbon emissions. What better way than replacing a gas guzzling water sport boat with an all-electric model.
He started talking about it with his college friend and Boeing compatriot Ryan Cook, who was also looking to do something to address environmental issues and had exactly the right experience, having spent his career after Boeing as a Lead Engineer at Space X.
As Mitch told us in the podcast we did with him (link at the bottom of this page), “A lot of those skills are directly transferable to boat building. If you think about it, the hull of a boat is pretty similar to the nose of a rocket“.
Mitch had significant Silicon Valley contacts from his tech start up days, and the early backers of Arc One are some of the most prominent investors in the field, including Andreesen Horowitz and Chris Sacca’s Lowercarbon Capital. A few months later the company added the investment enterprises of Sean “Diddy” Combs, actor Will Smith and basketball star Kevin Durant to their stable of backers.
Arc One development started just over a year ago
At the time of our podcast last October, Mitch said the team was on track to move quickly to trials and have the Arc One ready for sales by the summer of 2022. That is an amazingly fast timeline for such an incredible piece of technology and a company that was only formed in January of 2021.
The team has been true to its word, though. Tests were conducted in March and the Arc One is now available for sale.
On announcing the launch of the boat, the company says: “Electrifying the world of boating holds enormous potential for people and the planet, and we’re here to make that happen at scale. The Arc One is a thrilling start to this journey.”
The Arc One has an even bigger motor and battery bank than originally planned, with the total battery capacity now 220 kWh – 10% larger than oringinally planned. That’s about three times the capacity of a Tesla Model Y, and means that for a day of general watersports – with everything from towing people at high speeds to circling around getting prepared at low speed – the boat has a usage time of 3-5 hours.
More Arc Boats models to come
Over the coming months, the Arc Boats team will be ramping up production, beginning the first customer deliveries, and taking boats on tour around the U.S. As Mitch told us in the podcast, they also have plans for other boats that together will offer a variety of ways to enjoy the water without carbon emissions, noxious fumes and obnoxious noise. The Arc mission, he says, “is to lead the marine industry into an electric future, starting with watersport boats.”
Here are the simple facts of their progress, and the Arc One, You can find out more details about the hull design, why aluminum was chosen as the hull material, future plans and more in the podcast.
Arc One Fact Sheet
Official name: Arc Boat Company
Founded: January 2021
Headquarters: Los Angeles, CA
The team is led by a group of former SpaceX engineers
Arc designs and builds its boats in-house, including its battery packs, powertrain systems, thermal control systems, and software
Arc One Specifications
Power: 500hp (≈370kW)
Top speed: 40mph
Length: 24 feet
Usage: 3-5 hours
Battery capacity: 220 kWh
Human capacity: 12 people
Price: $300,000
Available for preorder now; sales begin June 15, with the first delivery happening later this summer.
