Arc has built the first models of its long-awaited 500-horsepower Arc Sport electric boat, and we had the chance to take it for a quick demo in Long Beach, California, and this thing Torn.
Arc is a very new company – founded in 2021 in Los Angeles, targeting the luxury boating market with high-powered electric boats. Its founders, Mitch Lee and Ryan Cook, are engineers who met while working at Boeing.
The company has since grown to over 100 employees, and the company boasts that many of them are former workers at SpaceX, Tesla, and Rivian (like every other electric startup).
But it looks like they’re onto something, because Arc has managed to raise more than $100 million in funding so far — which isn’t a bad change to get things started.
The Arc Sport, announced in February, is not Arc’s first boat. It previously released the Arc One, a limited-edition speedboat worth $300,000, of which only 20 units were built.
But the Sport is a wake boat, which is a more specialized type of boat, an outright boat He steals Compared to this model, it starts at a lowly low price of $258,000. Pocket change indeed (although an early tricked-out “Founder’s Fleet” model with all the options and extras included will cost $322,000).
That’s not cheap by any means, but it’s relatively competitive with high-end wake boats from companies like Nautique or Malibu (Nautique has its own electric boat, which starts at $312,000).
Wake boats have increased in popularity recently, both for standard boating activities and for wakeboarding/wakeboarding. Wake boats need high power along with specialized control surfaces and ballast control to help create a large, surfable wake behind the boat.
It also includes a tower to attach a tow rope to, so skaters can climb onto the board. The Arc Sport has an adjustable tower that can be raised and lowered to provide a higher angle to help pull passengers up out of the water, or lower clearance if needed to move around the dock.
The electric motor has a lot of benefits for this application, many of which are familiar from the automotive world. For example, when skiing behind the Arc Sport, you’re not constantly choking on fumes and going crazy with exhaust just feet from your face in a beautiful, natural lake setting. Which is completely redundant.
The weight penalty for the massive 226 kWh battery isn’t that significant either. Wake boats typically benefit from having a large mass at the stern of the boat – they will deliberately take on water as ballast to ensure the stern is as low as possible in order to catch a larger wave. So having a large battery located low at the stern is fit for purpose anyway.
As in electric cars, the electric motor has high torque at zero rpm, which means it has… Lots of hopping and going.
Arc used a low (2,000) rpm semi-truck engine with direct drive (no gearbox) to reduce noise and friction and ensure high torque, which meant we literally fell out of our damn seat the first time they punched it. Arc says it has twice the torque of competing boats, and it sure felt like it.
It’s also easier to position the electric motor where you want it, so there’s no need to have a big, loud, hot, vibrating block in the middle of the boat (where motors often go), making it easier to use that space for socializing or moving around inside the boat. The engine in this case is located in a very central location, under the floor of the boat.
The boat is quite quiet at low speeds and some slight vibrations can be felt through the floor, but they are much less than you would get from a rig. Despite the noise of splashing water, high winds and 500 horsepower, things get noisier when you reach the electronically limited top speed of 40 knots.
I’ve spent a fair amount of time around boats myself, having grown up harborside and in a boating family. I didn’t spend much of that time driving anything impressive, but I was at the helm of a few boats here and there. As for electric boats, all I’ve driven before now are Duffy boats and the like – low speed cruisers, nothing like that.
After getting a quick test ride out of the Arc, it was time for me to grab the helm and go for a spin. I did some figure 8s, which got me up so I could break through, and I felt this intense acceleration on my own (which was… easier to stay seated when I was actually ready for it).
Once I started, I didn’t really want to stop (but then again, that’s often the case for a day of boating, right?). The boat handled great in the flat water we were in – and choppy water when I put some mindfulness into powering through it.
The captain’s seat was a little tight for legroom, but it’s adjustable and Arc is looking to increase the amount of adjustability in the production version. The throttle was very turbulent, which is bound to happen with a lot of power, but Arc was thinking of making it easier to map the throttle lever, which I thought would be a good idea. Fortunately, Arc has full control over the boat’s software, so adjustments like this are possible, and there can be user-selectable driving modes.
This is another way Arc differentiates itself: with a sleek, modern interface that’s updatable over the air. Some boats have the ability to update maps over the air, but Arc says it’s the first vessel capable of providing Tesla-like updates to software deeply integrated into the boat.
The UI we saw wasn’t finalized, but what we saw worked well and had various aspects of customizability, such as simple controls for adjusting activation, the degree of tilt of the boat in the water, or looking through one of the boat’s three cameras. One neat aspect was a little red bar on the pilot display that showed when the steering was centered, which is easy to miss in the boat.
We weren’t able to test any connectivity/app features, but managing charging remotely, checking on-boat cameras, etc. seem like normal features coming in the future.
As for the practical bits, the Arc sport is 23 feet long with comfortable seating for 15 (though make sure you’re holding on to something when the pilot punches it), plenty of cupholders (Arc told us the Final Edition may have more) and good space. For storage under the seats and back deck (another advantage of the electric motor, more storage space where the motor will go), and panel storage on top of the adjustable tower.
It also has a set of lateral thrusts on the bow and stern that aid in precise maneuvering, which can be a big help during docking, especially for less experienced pilots.
Maintenance should be easier, too. Boats are known to be a hassle to keep running well, since they sit in corrosive material filled with exotic plants and animals for literally their entire lives. It’s no different here, but at least you won’t have to worry about fuel spoilage or winterizing the boat.
Most docks have 240-volt service for shore power, and Arc boats can remain plugged in (while 7-10 kW service means 20-30 hours to “fully charge” the 226 kWh battery, it is rare Having a boat out more than ~4 hours a day anyway). Fuel is also much cheaper than paying gasoline prices in the marina. The Sport is also capable of 225 kW CCS DC charging, for the few marinas that have installed DC fast chargers (there’s one in Tahoe).
This brings us to the question of “range,” which is a different set of boating calculus. Arc says the massive battery is good for 4-5 hours of use, though that depends largely on what you’re doing. If you are cruising at a low speed, this time will be extended significantly. If you’re constantly idling or running at high speeds, you’ll be using a lot of energy (water is thicker than air after all – there’s a much greater speed penalty to water efficiency).
Ark said she took the boat to Catalina Island, located 26 miles across the sea from the California coast. On the way out, they kept it conservative, using about 10% of the battery. They then camped overnight and bombed back to the mainland the next day at high speed, ending up with about 35% survival by the time they returned. So, the high speed flight used about 5 times as much energy as the low speed flight (there were probably wind/wave differences as well). And more than 50 miles out in the ocean, with range to spare, is a day or two of boating.
But more often than not, these machines will be used on lakes or calm waters anyway, so they should be more than enough for a great day out.
And in a beautiful lake setting, the primary benefit of an electric boat becomes exceptionally clear. These are delicate and restricted environments, so adding anything foreign to them can wreak havoc on the ecosystem. The less crap we can bring into the lakes, in the form of fumes, oil and what have you, the better.
The quietness and lack of exhaust really enhance the boating experience, but unfortunately the Arc doesn’t have a solution for one problem: everyone. While boating, we could smell a foul odor from some passing boats, and the surface of the water near the docks was still oily from other boat activity.
This will eventually change – some marinas and lakes already offer separate registrations for electric boats, charging significant additional money to launch gas-powered boats due to the environmental damage they cause, which electric boats don’t have to pay. Local efforts to clean up lakes are very strong — the predominance of “Keep Tahoe Blue” bumper stickers across California suggests that as more options become available, restrictions on dirtier options may increase.
So let’s keep our eyes on the prize here – not only is the Arc Sport expensive, it’s also the vanguard of an industry that’s about to change for the better. Our entire Earth is getting hotter and dirtier with every gallon of dinosaur juice we bleed from our precious planet, so why not keep some of it deep in the Earth where it belongs instead of on the surface of our lakes and marinas.
Arc begins its nationwide beta tour today, which you can sign up for here. They’re still not full production boats, but they’re close. Arc has begun taking orders (you can reserve one for $500) and plans to deliver the boats “this year” (with the founder’s entire fleet delivered by next summer), with an eventual goal of producing “hundreds” annually.
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