Electric Ski Boat

Oh come on, Pete.

That's a big assumption you are making. Maybe you should read more about the volt and how it works:)

Ok, yes, I have electricity at the cottage. But we get most, if not all the electricity up there from the hydro electric dams on the Wisconsin river.

JoeinNY wrote: Some day I will be able the tell the difference in sound between the mushy clicky brushless dc electric motors in the stock boats and the high intensity whine of of the inverter driven internal permanent magnet synchronous motors in those that have been hot-rodded. The guys who are real good can tell you if those internal magnets have been staggered or not.. Seriously someday we will be talking about overclocking the processor in your inverter so you get a quicker throttle response, or how far we can safely laser cut a stator stack to get in a bigger neodymium magnet to increase bottom end torque.

Well we rulled out the syn type rotors in the AC induction motors has not being a viable option to use in a Hybrid, Not sure any one uses magnets or DC motors in an electric or Hybrid application either all of our products where A/C 3 phase motors running off of an inverter. The Copper bar and endrings for the rotor was the hot ticket but costly when comparing it to a cast aluminum rotor set-up.

Yeah the gas burners sound good, but I am young yet and I can adapt.

Some day I will be able the tell the difference in sound between the mushy clicky brushless dc electric motors in the stock boats and the high intensity whine of of the inverter driven internal permanent magnet synchronous motors in those that have been hot-rodded. The guys who are real good can tell you if those internal magnets have been staggered or not..

Seriously someday we will be talking about overclocking the processor in your inverter so you get a quicker throttle response, or how far we can safely laser cut a stator stack to get in a bigger neodymium magnet to increase bottom end torque.

Sure it might take a hundred years but with advances in medical science we might live to see it.

Right now it is is expensive but there are some fun things going on with electric motors, efficienies in the low to mid 90's are out there now in mass production..

better wake up, cruising at cruise speed, 5 hours then charge

hydrogen over electric, not much trade off, but finding the hydrogen is the problem

horkn wrote: The gas generator would work like the generator on the soon to be released chevy volt. That little generator motor burns a lot less gas than the 5.8 liter v8. Now as to my grid energy, we got rid of coal power a long time ago. I am a lot closer to Milwaukee than Green Bay. Like 15 minutes north of Milwaukee close;) Actually we pull electricity from Port Washington, like 8 minutes away. That Port Washington facility went from coal to natural gas in like 2004.

Tom,
It is quite obvious you have absolutely no idea how a hybrid on the road works.

So, no electricity in the house up north. Very quaint. You like "roughing" it!!

jbear wrote: Blah...Blah... Blah...Blah..... when the sound of your speakers is louder than your motor its time to stop. its no mufflers for me...till the last drop of oil is gone. my .02 worth. Thanks. john

LOL!! My sentiments exactly!

I've never bothered to put a radio in mine because I have yet to hear a song that I like better than the unmuffled sound of my 351. In fact, as I'm typing this, I've got the headphones on listenting to a recording I made of my SN running in the driveway the other day. :) (in case you're wondering, no, I'm not joking)

Enjoy it while you can. It ain't gonna last forever.

C-Bass wrote: Pete hits the nail on the head here. The electric used to power the motors (typical motor = 90% efficient) comes from the batteries. The batteries get their juice from a power plant (typical = 33% efficient) or the onboard internal combustion engine (typical = 25-30%) powering a generator (typical = 95%.) Quick and dirty efficiency here... if you're using the juice from the grid to charge the batteries, to then power the motors & turn the prop, you're at around 29% efficiency. Say you run it out of juice, and need to use the onboard engine to get a charge...so now you're at 25% efficiency. How is that any better than using just the regular old engine in the first place(25-30% efficient)??? Robbing Peter to pay Paul, and calling it green....I don't think so. I'm with J-Bear...I wanna hear the V8 make some noise, especially when it's not affecting the environment any more than a "green" engine. ***This is not to say that there will not be a greener solution in the future.

If the APU (Auxilery Power Unit) was gas then you might be in the efficency range you state but the APU's are typically high effeciency Diesel units. Using a gas ICE as the APU is not very common and gennerally frowned upon in the industry. We used a three cylinder Diesel APU in the Class 6 Hybrid Buses running in NYC, a singal or twin cylinder diesel APU is all would be needed to run the motors in a car or boat application.

Also Regen braking doesn't really add much to the range in a car's application either, might get you another 5 minutues of run time over the course of packs charge.

Typically the APU doesn't charge the battery pack but feeds the motors and does little charging of the pack and while under heavy load in electric mode the APU kicks in to add more Current to the system. Most applications the pack is used to get the vehicle started and the APU is turned off when not in motion, like at a stop sign, you start from a dead stop on 100% of the pack then the APU fires and drives the motors, less polution is the end result.

Sail boat, that would be green. I don't think you can make a trulry green boat, just one that uses less fuel, and even that would be quite a challenge. I wonder what plugging in these cars and boats does to your electric bill, nobody ever says much about that part.

I can see a electric or a hybrid in places where you are regulated and have to use one but if not, they simply are NOT "green". Anyone who thinks this has been scammed!! There's no regenerative braking which is the key to energy savings in cars/trucks/train locos. Then there's the "cradle to grave" natural resources needed to build one of them!!!

The hybrid boat already exists. Epic makes them in California, it has a diesel motor powering a generator to charge the bateries which run th motor. Supposed to run for about an hour on electricity before the motor kicks in, so all you short session people might never hear the motor run.

I've folowed these boats over on Wakeworld since they were a drawing on a napkin. The guy who started the company also works for someone who is designing electric cars, so the hybrid boat was right up his alley once he got done with the gas powered one. I used one of their boats to pull our hydrofoil sideshow at the dragboat races last year. It was very interesting, 23 ft, has a mercruser big block and weighs 3000 lbs dry. It will also hold 4000 lbs of ballast and has dual rudders. We ran it unloaded for acceration purposes and with the mercury electronics you set the pick up and your speed and when your ready you throw the lever. The post pulls the skier up the exact same every time and then rockets up to the exact speed, it did slow down in the sharp turns where everyone had to hold on, but as soon as I strightened it out we were back to speed almost instantly. I really liked it, it was very stripped down by modern standards, but had everything you needed to get the job done.

The bad part a out the hybrid boat is that it is rumored to be $150000. I have heard that they have actually sold a few in Europe where the taxes are so high on the regular wakeboats that it starts to make since. I also saw that they will be using some of those Boesch wooden boats to bull some of the events in the Barefoot Worlds this summer in Germany, I'm guessing it won't be the electric one.

http://23e.epicboats.com/

John, you know better, it would be nice with electric. like last night at 1:00 sneaking into the drive lol

8122pbrainard wrote: horkn wrote: I like the idea of an electric driven ski boat. Now make one that has a gas generator that will charge the batteries for longer trips.    And what would the engine generator do? Think about it - you'd be better off just with the gas engine. Power generation is far from being 100% efficient (probably around only 60%) and nether is a electric motor (around 90%). Why do they need to have cooling - because the waste energy is heat! You'd be burning more gas!! All electric - not very green ether when you consider the power generation needed. Your off coal fired out of Green Bay.

actually that is refere to as a hybrid, and you don't want to use a gas ICE as your APU for a hybrid system. Typically you can get better efficiency using a small diesel as the APU for this application. In theroy you don't need batteries at all but most have them anyway, the thought is you can go pure electric for so many miles before the APU kicks in and feeds the drive motors electricity.

yes I did!! pretty impressive...

horkn wrote: I like the idea of an electric driven ski boat. Now make one that has a gas generator that will charge the batteries for longer trips.

And what would the engine generator do? Think about it - you'd be better off just with the gas engine. Power generation is far from being 100% efficient (probably around only 60%) and nether is a electric motor (around 90%). Why do they need to have cooling - because the waste energy is heat! You'd be burning more gas!!

All electric - not very green ether when you consider the power generation needed. Your off coal fired out of Green Bay.

Very impressive!
Any details available on the engine, batteries, range, costs?

Don't know what April means by "no powerboats allowed in Europe".
There are emission restrictions for a few lakes in Switzerland and South Germany, but thats about it.
The number of places where you are allowed to go faster than 14 mph are limited, but this is a speed issue.