Arc Boat Company's all-electric Arc Sport model gets between four and six hours of typical use on a single charge.
Arc Boat Company
Arc Boat began sales of its second electric boat model in three years just this week. The new $258,000 Arc Sport is designed for the attentive sports enthusiast and follows the company's previous Arc One model, a limited-edition luxury cruiser.
While the startup has produced fewer than two dozen of those previous boats, it is preparing for continued production of the new model, which it unveiled on Tuesday.
The 23-foot-long Arc Sport can carry up to 15 people at a time. It features a large battery with enough power to last for four to six hours and has a top speed of 40 miles per hour. At its price, it will compete with high-end models sold by traditional boat builders like Nautique, MasterCraft and Malibu.
Arc is one of a handful of promising startups aiming to electrify boats for sport and leisure, including GM-backed Pure Watercraft and Stockholm-based X Shore.
Traditional fuel-burning boats contribute to significant environmental problems including noise pollution, smog and water pollution that can be seen floating on the surrounding waters.
Arc co-founder and CEO Mitch Lee said he spent his younger years wakeboarding, kneeboarding and wakeboarding in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta near Stockton, Calif., and always noticed the smell of burning diesel in marinas and runoff from engines.
He wanted to do something to reduce the negative impacts of these sports and partnered with former SpaceX engineer Ryan Cook, who is now chief technology officer at Arc, to make that and a “better boating experience” a reality.
Arc's leadership team also includes veterans of boating, automotive and transportation companies including Tesla, Rivian, LyftBrunswick and Marine Maxwhich helped the electric boat maker convince investors that their designs and technology could work.
About $110 million in early funding for Arc has been raised from a mix of celebrity angel investors and venture capital firms including Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson of the National Basketball Association. Actor Will Smith; and venture capital funds Andreessen Horowitz, Eclipse Ventures, and Menlo Ventures, among others.
Arc was able to design and begin building its all-electric boats within a relatively short time frame, less than three years, because the auto industry had already invested years and billions of dollars in building a supply chain for the components that go into making electric vehicles, Lee said. .
The CEO stressed that purchasing components from trusted suppliers, rather than creating many of them from scratch as electric car manufacturers Tesla and Rivian did in their early days, made it possible to go from concept to dock in a few years rather than a decade. .
Arc plans to start delivering its new Arc Sport battery electric vehicle to customers this year.
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