Electric boat maker Candela is approaching cruising speed with $25 million in new funding and the first commercial deployment of its new P-12 ferry in New Zealand. The company has global ambitions for its highly efficient ships and has completed and delivered dozens of them, which is a lot in this industry!
Candela has been slowly increasing the size of its vessels for years, starting with the considerably smaller C-7 and C-8 (looking at length in meters), of which, as of this week, they have produced a total of 70. The P-12, a ferry design that can carry up to 30 passengers, made its debut late last year.
Last week, the P-12 received its first mission: transporting people across New Zealand's Lake Manapōuri, a picturesque destination but also, more importantly, the site of the country's largest hydroelectric power station. And now staff at that station can go to work on a clean-running ship instead of driving, which the companies estimate will save about 240 tons of emissions a year. It's a start, but it will also help keep the lake clean and calm.
International interest in these boats is also evident in the participation in the financing round of Groupe Beneteau, a nautical company more than a century old that manufactures thousands of boats a year. CEO Bruno Thivoyon said in the press release that investing in Candela makes sense as part of the company's “green transition goals,” scaling innovative solutions for more sustainable shipping.
Many traditional boating companies are adopting electric motors and next-generation technology; I spoke to the head of another major manufacturer, Dave Foulkes of Brunswick, at CES about it. He said collaborations are fruitful because small, growing companies need revenue and reach, while larger ones need ready-to-deploy technology. Like any other industry, you have to know when to buy and when to build, and the big boating companies are happy to buy or invest.
Candela's boats use hydrofoils with bottom-mounted electric motors to fly effectively over the surface of the water once they exceed a certain speed, greatly reducing energy consumption, which historically and understandably is a sticking point for electric boating. The Focus needs a powerful autopilot to keep it balanced, and despite their assurances I wonder how they would handle log collisions, but overall the pros seem to outweigh the cons.
I drove one over the summer in Seattle (looking closely at the logs, which is quite common in Elliot Bay) and wished they would replace the fast, gas-guzzling passenger ferries with P-12s. Candela is not the only one dedicated to this market either; Navier is also trying to attract coastal communities with the lure of quiet, energy-efficient public transportation and is currently moving Stripe employees around the Bay Area. And while Zin Boats has been quiet for some time, they are also looking for markets for the next version of their boat.
The $25 million round was led, as mentioned, by Beneteau, with the participation of EQT Ventures, Ocean Zero LLC and Kan Dela.
AB.
