Electric boat powered by Polestar is an attempt by Candela is make electric boats more viable by offering highly efficient powertrains. For electric vehicles, the weight, aerodynamics, and powertrain efficiency play a huge role in performance and range. This is different for cards as the design techniques vary to for efficiency gains.
For Candela, its team knew that just putting batteries and an electric motor in a regular boat wouldn’t suffice, so it sought hydrofoil technology. In a typical boat, the hull has contact with the water, leaving a massive surface area open to frictional losses. In an electric boat, this could mean a devastating efficiency drop resulting in a limited range.
In a hydrofoil, retractable wings will extend from the hull and create a lifting force similar to an airplane wing. Once the boat reaches ‘flight’ speed, the boat will rise out of the water and smoothly glide several feet above the water. At its cruising speed of 22 knots, the C-8 should draw just 23kW (30 horsepower) continuously. According to Candela’s press release, the C-8 is over five times more efficient than a traditional boat.
Battery tech
Candela thought its battery tech wasn’t ready to provide enough range for a mass-market product. In need of batteries, the firm networked around, and Polestar decided to work with the aquatic startup to get its boats back into the air. “I called Gustav {Hasselskog}, the CEO of Candela, and checked what kind of needs they have and if a Polestar 2 battery could then fit into the hull of a Candela boat,” said Dennis Nobelius, the COO of Polestar. Soon after, Candela decided that the 69kWh Polestar 2 Standard Range pack would be a good fit, and then they collaborated to get the batteries suited for a marine environment.
“We needed to do software adaptations and alterations to fit with the battery management system that would be needed in the Candela boat and the specific demands on how to pull out power from the battery,” Nobelius told according to InsideEVs. The final result meant the Candela C-8s could go 57 nautical miles or 65 US miles on the Polestar battery. In other words, the C-8 could travel from Long Beach, California, to Avalon, Catalina Island on one charge. Besides the batteries, Polestar is excited to invest its resources into different areas of electrification. “For us, this is more of a brand cooperation, a good technology cooperation, where we can both learn a bit, but the real boost here is for us where we can support electromobility be it on land or on the sea,” Nobelius added.
