Any takers for the new EV outboard, $80,000 dollars and range of 30 miles

[32 volt boater]

Outboards are cool cause they are easy to swap onto different boats but I kinda think with electric that inboard is the way to go.

No transmission cause motors reverse and my design for electric inboard boats I would make it so you could add more and more motors/power by placing them end to end, making them connectable with couplers both ends.

I wouldent need to manufacture seperate 50,100,150 ... 300hp models, I would just string together 50s or something

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I yet to think of anything first this forum but maybe this time?

 

[Ampster]

What are you doing for speed control?

 

[wholybee]

Outboards are cool cause they are easy to swap onto different boats but I kinda think with electric that inboard is the way to go.

No transmission cause motors reverse and my design for electric inboard boats I would make it so you could add more and more motors/power by placing them end to end, making them connectable with couplers both ends.

I wouldent need to manufacture seperate 50,100,150 ... 300hp models, I would just string together 50s or something

X---[[]]=[[]]=[[]]=[[]]

I yet to think of anything first this forum but maybe this time?

Usually there is a gear reduction, like a belt with 2:1 reduction. In that case, adding more motors doesn't require end-to-end.

 

[Ampster]

Usually there is a gear reduction, like a belt with 2:1 reduction.

With an electric motor the torque is more constant throughout RPM range so gear reduction is not needed as much as in an ICE engine. That is why I asked about speed control. Presumably it will need that to dock and do the usual stuff done in boats. Plus the prop pitch affects the RPMs.

 

[robby]

What the heck!
Only 37 Nautical miles of range using 126KWh of power!
Anyway even if I had more money than brains this would be a non starter.
The only thing worst than running out of power with a Car is running out of Power on a boat in the open Sea.

 

[A.Justice]

I would buy an electric boat motor to be efficient, and a gas one for performance.

300 hp isn't as large as a lot of gas outboards, and it costs more than Mercurys 600hp V12, excluding the battery. You could hook up 1200hp of ICE for the same price, or less (depending on battery configuration ?). I bet the gas engine weighs a good bit less than the electric with its batteries as well, farther improving performance.

This seems like a product to fill a niche that doesn't exist.

 

[wholybee]

With an electric motor the torque is more constant throughout RPM range so gear reduction is not needed as much as in an ICE engine. That is why I asked about speed control. Presumably it will need that to dock and do the usual stuff done in boats. Plus the prop pitch affects the RPMs.

Yes, torque is more constant, and in particular there is max torque at zero RPM. But that doesn't change the physics that twice the RPM creates twice the horsepower. A 15kW motor will not produce 15kW at half its normal operating RPM. And electric motors start out being less powerful than the ICE motors they replace. So, you run the motor at the RPM it develops the power you need, and use gear reduction to get the RPM you need. And while yes you can change pitch, for example my boat has a 16x10 prop with a diesel engine. They don't make a 16x5, and one probably wouldn't work very well. So, you reduce the RPM.

Unrelated to the gear reduction, you also need a thrust bearing on the shaft. That is a whole lot easier to do with a separate shaft that the motor connects to with a belt.

Here is one that would work for my boat. 2 motors, connected to a shaft will belts. Not cheap!

https://electricyacht.com/product/quiettorque-30-lc-electric-motor/

 

[eagleray]

A 15kW motor will not produce 15kW at half its normal operating RPM. And electric motors start out being less powerful than the ICE motors they replace. So, you run the motor at the RPM it develops the power you need, and use gear reduction to get the RPM you need. And while yes you can change pitch, for example my boat has a 16x10 prop with a diesel engine. They don't make a 16x5, and one probably wouldn't work very well. So, you reduce the RPM.

Unrelated to the gear reduction, you also need a thrust bearing on the shaft. That is a whole lot easier to do with a separate shaft that the motor connects to with a belt.

True... however, inline motors could potentially achieve the same goal as gearing bc in theory you could start the shaft w/ a high-torque low-RPM motor and hand off to any number of lower-torque higher-RPM motors in sequence, all sharing the same shaft. You'd have to build the whole system from scratch, bc it would require a custom speed controller wired to multiple stators, or a multiplexer for multiple controllers. Either way, it'd be a fun project!

I saw an example of it working in an RC boat on Youtube. They didn't multiplex anything, just ran it all in parallel. They did it to 4X the output rather than improve efficiency, since I think everything we're discussing here is only becomes relevant past a certain threshold of vessel size/weight/drag. With tiny RC boats, they just send it, and damn the efficiency. They used 4X small inline motors instead of 1 giant motor. I assume they were trying to save space/weight/cost to supercharge the craft despite its thin profile. A single motor of that power wouldn't have fit inboard.

RE: thrust bearing, I assume a belt makes a thrust bearing easier only if the motor is not dual-shaft, which it's not in most cases. But with an inline setup, they'd all be dual-shaft. Then a thrust bearing would just go at the end, yeah? You wouldn't need to gear anything.

 

[Ampster]

And electric motors start out being less powerful than the ICE motors they replace. So, you run the motor at the RPM it develops the power you need, and use gear reduction to get the RPM you need.

I think you missed the point that with an electric motor the torque is virtually the same at 100 RPMs as it is at 2000 RPM so you don't necessarily need gear reduction to get the power you need depending on how many RPMs you need on the shaft. The only reason an electric motor would be less powerful than the ICE motor it replaced is the user picked the wrong electric motor.

 

[wholybee]

I think you missed the point that with an electric motor the torque is virtually the same at 100 RPMs as it is at 2000 RPM so you don't necessarily need gear reduction to get the power you need depending on how many RPMs you need on the shaft. The only reason an electric motor would be less powerful than the ICE motor it replaced is the user picked the wrong electric motor.

It doesn't matter. Electric motors are rated in kW. Power = torque x RPM. So, let's say you need 20kW of power to move your boat at the required speed and you get a motor that produces 20kW, you need to run it at the speed that the motor will produce that power. If you run it at your required prop shaft speed, then the power it produces will be less than 20kW. Unless you are staring with a 40kW motor, in which case you could run it at half speed and get your required 20kW. If you buy a 20kW motor, run it at half power to turn your prop at the required speed, it will not develop the power it needs. But, run it at full speed with gear reduction, and it will. And remember, that the reduction doesn't change the power, but will increase the torque, and reduce the RPM. So whatever the torque is (no matter that it is constant from 100 to 2000 RPM) a 2:1 gear reduction will double it.

I only know (personally) a couple people who have done an electric conversion. One of them was sure it would work without reduction. After installing it all, it didn't work well, and he tore it out and reinstalled it (the same motor) with the reduction. Then it worked great.