AUTONEWS
Sports boats set out on a voyage to electrify the waters in the same way Tesla electrified the roads
Grant Jeide looked like another dude riding the rollicking waves left in the wake of a 23-foot (7-meter) boat ripping through the water at speeds of up to 40 miles per hour on a river in Northern California's Delta earlier this summer.
But Jeide was performing his aquatic acrobatics behind a different breed of boat—one powered by electricity instead of gasoline. Unencumbered by the din and acrid smell of a combustion engine, the boat's passengers could chat with Jeide as he surfed behind them while they savored the afternoon breeze wafting along the river.
"It's like a playground back there, you feel like you could just ride all day," exclaimed Jeide, part of the sales team at Arc Boats, a 3-year-old startup embarking on a voyage to electrify the waters in the same way that Tesla has already led the charge to electrify the roads.
As Tesla did with its first car 16 years ago, Arc Boats is starting with luxurious vessels likely to appeal to a small and affluent audience that isn't reluctant to spend large sums of money to own the latest advances in technology.
They're people like Jonathan Coon, a self-proclaimed geek who got rich after starting 1-800 Contacts in his college dorm room back in the 1990s and can afford to splurge on the sleek, high-powered vessels that Arc Boats is designing and building.
An electric sports boat made by California-based Arc Boats floats on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta near Bethel Island, Calif. on Wednesday, July 31, 2024. Credit: AP Photo/Terry CheaAfter spending more than $300,000 on a luxury cruiser called Arc One a couple of years ago, Coon is forking over another $258,000 price to become the first customer in line to get Arc Sport—a model made for popular aquatic pastimes such as wakeboarding and water skiing.
It's something that Coon wouldn't have considered buying just a few years ago after renting gas-powered boats and riding on the gas-powered boats of friends and hearing about all the hassles that went into maintaining them, along with the cost to fuel up vessels that usually only get a few miles per gallon.
"My view on boats had always been that the best kind of boat is someone else's boat because they can be such nightmares," Coon, 54, said during an interview from Austin, Texas, where he is overseeing the development of a lakeside community. "But that's not the case now. These guys just nailed every little detail on an electric boat that's just fun to use."
Arc Boats CEO Mitch Lee is a long-time nerd, too. He grew up in San Jose, California—the cradle of Silicon Valley—where he began trading in currency exchanges when he was just 8 years old. After moving on to Northwestern University to study mechanical engineering, Lee created a personal finance app called Penny that he sold in 2018 to Credit Karma, which is now owned by Intuit.
That deal helped provide Lee with the money to start Arc Boats in Southern California with Ryan Cook, a friend he met at Northwestern. Electrifying boats has been in the back of Lee's mind since Tesla rolled out its first car—the Roadster—in 2008 and started to wonder if the technology would eventually work on the boats he grew to love as the son of parents who loved to water skiing.
The success of Tesla's expanding line-up of vehicles along with electric cars made by other automakers finally created a supply chain of batteries and other parts needed to electrify boats, too. Arc Boats, founded in 2021, now employs more than 100 employees, including former engineers who worked for Elon Musk at two of his breakthrough companies—Tesla and rocket ship maker SpaceX.
After selling only a handful of the Arc One luxury cruisers, Lee has foresees being able to ramp up production to sell hundreds of the Arc Sport model across the country annually.
Besides its home state of California, Arc Boats is targeting other water-loving hot spots such as Texas, Idaho, Minnesota, Michigan and other parts of the U.S. with lots of lakes and people who want to have fun on them. The first Arc Sport is supposed to be delivered to Coon before the end of this year.
"There's a lot of enthusiasm for a product like this, because it solves all these core pain points that gas boat owners have today," Lee, 35, said while piloting an Arc Sport on the San Joaquin River near Bethel Island, California. "It's quieter. It's far more reliable. It's way cheaper to operate. You're not inhaling fumes off of the back of the boat. And we're doing an interview on a boat here all you hear is the sound of the water."
Mitch Lee, co-founder and CEO of Arc Boats, stands in front of an Arc Sport, an electric boat made by his California company, in Bethel Island, Calif. on Wednesday, July 31, 2024. Credit: AP Photo/Terry Chea
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