LA start-up plans 475hp electric outboard by year end

Arc Boat Co., the Los Angeles-based startup electric boat company is coming to market by the end of 2021 using a Tesla business model, a number of former SpaceX employees and US$4.25m in seed funding from investment firms Andreessen Horowitz and the Lowercarbon Capital fund. With only 15,000 electric boats sold in 2020 according to IDTechEx, the Cambridge-based research group predicts the market to reach 70,000 units by the end of the decade and be valued at US$1.4b. According to the founder, Arc’s competitive advantage is battery capacity. Boats require more energy than cars to travel like distances, so the boats will feature batteries with 200 kilowatts of capacity, nearly double that of other electric vessels. Lee plans to manufacture those batteries in-house.