10 Major Industries Ranked By Climate Action Progress
The Climate Crisis team on Quora asked me to assess which industries are ahead and behind in terms of dealing with climate solutions. I’d just finished reading Kahneman’s Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment (strongly recommended), so instead of attempting to provide a multifactorial scoring, I decided to go with a ranking mechanism instead.
And so, my list with color commentary of the major industries which are addressing or challenged to deliver or hostile to climate action, from best to worst.
1. Wind Industry
Wind energy is the biggest new source of low-carbon energy on the planet at present. About 140 GW of capacity with an average capacity factor around 40% was commissioned in 2020, 50% of that in China. As electricity is the future of all energy, being the biggest single provider of new low-carbon electricity pretty much puts you on the top of the heap.
Every MWh of wind energy displaces a MWh of fossil fuel energy with its median 750 kg of CO2 emissions, so last year’s 140 GW of capacity turns into annual CO2 emissions reductions of about 350 million tons of avoided CO2 every year for the next 30 years. Wind energy is the current work horse of CO2 avoidance, hence the reason I’ve spent so much time in the space.
Big providers in order are:
- Vestas – Europe
- Siemens Gamesa – Europe
- Goldwind – China
- GE – USA
- Envision – China
Hmmm… Europe and China are kicking butt and taking names here.
Ørsted gets an honorable mention in this too. It used to be an oil and gas major. Then it saw the light. Now it’s dumped the carbon blight entirely, and is the biggest offshore wind deployer in the world. Also European. Go Europe!
2. Solar Industry
Solar is the second biggest source of new low-carbon electricity in the world, about 100 GW in 2020, once again 50% in China. So that’s pretty damned skippy, and represents about 150 million tons of avoided CO2 annually for the next 30 years.
And what are the companies there?
- LONGi Solar – China
- Jinko Solar – China
- JA Solar – China
- Trina Solar – China
- Canadian Solar – China
Yeah, China owns this market. You have to get down to #8 before you find a non-Chinese manufacturer, First Solar from the US.
Which is why there’s this big Sinophobic lobbying push happening in the US and Europe to cast Chinese solar panels as made with coal and slave labor. I wish I was making this up, but WSJ editorials, observation of social media, and a bit of insider knowledge on my part makes it clear to me that this is occurring.
Resist the Sinophobic BS. We have about 3 billion solar panels on the planet right now, and we need a lot more. China is the only scaled manufacturer of solar panels and many other climate action necessities, and is doing a lot better on climate action than western media portrays, especially the right-wing media, so buy Chinese already.
Silicon Carbide, SiC wafer v8.1 OpAmp Chip in Co-fired Alumina Package for High-temperature Application courtesy NASA
After this, the pickings get a bit slimmer, and the ranking gets harder. Nevertheless, I’m going to pick:
3. Electronics
Wait. What? Electronics? Yeah, electronics.
LEDs have caused lighting and video energy consumption to virtually disappear from the radar screen. 75% energy reduction out of the box. Integrated circuits have made virtually every home appliance an energy sipper, not an energy hog. TVs and monitors? Vastly more of them, vastly less energy used.
Our smartphones replace dozens of comparatively high-energy requirement devices from tape recorders to video recorders to landline telephones to printed books to flashlights to newspapers and on and on.
People kvetch about data center energy usage, but it’s absurd how far a kWh of electricity goes in 2021 vs in 1980. Not only is the future of all energy electricity, we’ve become incredibly parsimonious about most of its uses.
Sure there’s pollution and waste. But when it comes to climate change, energy is Satan incarnate, and electronics have vastly reduced how often Satan is hanging around our homes smelling of brimstone and long-chain polymers. The biggest story in overall efficiency is electronics.
4. HVAC — Okay, Heat Pumps
Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning is going through a double revolution. It’s a big honking energy consumer. But it’s shifting more and more to electricity because baseboard heaters and AC are cheap and convenient, and electricity is decarbonizing.
You can’t decarbonize natural gas or oil heat.
But the second revolution is heat pumps. There’s something called the coefficient of performance (COP). It basically says how much heating or cooling you get per unit of energy input. With natural gas or oil, the absolute maximum is a COP of 1. That means 100% of the energy heats the place.
But heat pumps get COPs of 3–5. Wait. That’s 300% to 500% of energy in output as heat or cold! How do we go over unity! Call the Thermodynamics police!
Well, it’s simple. Heat pumps don’t create heat or cold, they pump heat from one place to another. They are air conditioners, but instead of just pumping heat out, they also pump heat in. And they do it with electricity, so as grids decarbonize with wind and solar, heating and cooling of buildings with heat pumps decarbonizes further in lockstep.
And heat pumps and HVAC in general are subject in most major economies to the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol. The who-what? The Montreal Protocol is the ozone layer saver. It replaced really nasty CFCs with HFCs in refrigerators, air conditioners, and aerosol cans globally, patching up the ozone layer as a result. And HFCs are a bit less warming than CFCs, so that was accidentally good. But a bit less warming still means 1300–14,000 times worse than CO2. Whoops.
The Kigali Amendment, which followed the Paris COP21 meeting a few months later, but in Rwanda, started to fix that. Basically, it said signatories had to start replacing high global warming potential (GWP) HFCs with lower GWP HFCs, HFOs, and CO2. Yeah, carbon dioxide. It’s a coolant when used as a refrigerant, which of course climate change deniers make into a stupidity test.
So modern heat pumps get 3–5 times the energy efficiency, their refrigerants don’t create global warming nearly as much, and they get more virtuous as the grids they are on decarbonize. Win, win, win!
5. Ground Transportation
Yeah, Tesla. And others. And 38,000 km of high speed electrified rail in China. And 430,000+ electric buses in China. And 19,000 km of high-speed rail in Europe. And 50% of all EVs being bought in China. Lots of electrified freight transport in Europe.
Electrified rail percentages by European country courtesy EU
And lots of transit, e-bikes, e-scooters, e-unicycles, and the like everywhere in the world.
Lots of good stuff happening in ground transportation from a climate perspective, but still a long way to go.
Après nous, le déluge
So yeah, things are going downhill from here on in the rankings. There are some major industries that are poking around the edges, but not getting there rapidly enough.
Boreal forest near Shovel Point in Tettegouche State Park, along the northern shore of Lake Superior in Minnesota. Image courtesy of Kablammo (public domain) via Wikimedia Commons.
6. Forestry
Here’s the deal. Planting a trillion trees will bridge a couple of decades of human emissions. And leaving them alone will enhance long term soil carbon sequestration. Further, cutting down the mature trees and turning them into durable wood products like furniture and load-bearing beams for construction sequesters that carbon for a long time.
So the forestry industry has a big part to play. But it’s not there yet.
Canada and Scandinavia are leading in engineered wood beam construction, with approvals for 12- and 16-story buildings respectively. Think plywood load-bearing beams instead of reinforced concrete.
Canada certainly has a lot of newly planted forests. And a bunch of clear cut ones too. I’ve sat in a clear cut on the way to Tofino, shaken to my core. It’s ugly. And I’ve personally pushed 12,000 seedlings into the ground while being towed on a planting trailer behind a tractor in a single weekend. Much more uplifting.
But they are working on it. Seedling planting by drones is a thing now, although survival rates are currently low. Having met a lot of tree planters, I’m pretty sure that the machines will outperform them eventually, if they aren’t already.
China has planted an area larger than the size of France with more than 40 billion trees since 1990.
Has that sunk in yet?
I’ll repeat it nonetheless. China has planted an area larger than the size of France with more than 40 billion trees since 1990.
That’s the forestry industry in action. Unfortunately, the rest of the world isn’t doing nearly as well as China, and to be clear, China deforested all of that first.
John Deere 9R 490 tractor. Image credit: John Deere Company
7. Agriculture
There’s a lot of ugly and a lot of good in agribusiness.
The land actually under cultivation has barely changed since 1950. We’re feeding vastly more people with the same land area. And the amount of ammonia-nitrogen fertilizer has barely changed since 1950 either.
The population has tripled, but we are feeding them with close to the same land area and close to the same amount of fertilizer. Holy FSM (which I guess would be cannoli)!
Yeah, agribusiness has been totally rocking. Same inputs, massively more outputs.
But still. Agriculture is a big producer of greenhouse gases. And 40% of the total land mass of the world is used for agriculture. That land used to be a carbon sink, but now it’s a carbon emitter.
And ammonia-nitrogen fertilizer sucks from a GHG perspective. The ammonia is made from fossil-fuel derived hydrogen. The fertilizer turns into nitrous oxides with high GWPs. Something like 8x the mass of CO2 is release per pound of fertilizers. Agriculture is in the range of 8–10% of total global GHG emissions annually.
That circle is not yet squared.
However, things are changing, and pretty quickly. Agribusiness is not a conservative, slow moving industry. You don’t triple outputs and maintain inputs since 1950 without being quick to adopt innovations. And now there are three innovations pushing through the global agribusiness world.
The first is precision agriculture. GPS guided, computer-controlled dispensation of seeds, pesticides, water, and fertilizer in precise amounts as needed. Electronics again.
The second is low-tillage agriculture. Leaving the sub-surface soil alone keeps the CO2 in the root system in place longer. And leaving it in place and not disrupting the fungal soil network gives time for the glomalin protein pathway for long term soil carbon capture to work.
The third is biogenetics. Multiple firms are working on making agriculture crops and their biomes more efficient and effective. I spent 90 minutes recently with Karsten Temme, the PhD CEO of PivotBio, which genetically engineers nitrogen-fixing microbes and then brews them in beer vats to spread on fields. 20–25% fertilizer use reduction for 6–7% crop yield improvements. That’s pretty big. And its goal is 100% fertilizer reduction by 2030. (Podcast coming shortly).
Massively more efficient since 1950. And massively less CO2 emissions coming.
8. Air Transportation
Because so much of air travel is international, dealing with emissions is assigned not to flow down targets to countries, but to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). It’s supposed to be acting to bring global carriers to reduced and zero emissions, but it’s incredibly slow and toothless.
To be clear, low-carbon bio- and synthetic jet fuels have been certified for use in aviation since at least 2011, but outside of a few demonstration efforts, aren’t used.
In part, this is because aviation is a hard target, not a soft one. Planes fly by throwing massive amounts of energy to get and keep high speed air flowing under a lifting surface. Doing that for up to 15 hours (my personal longest flight) is staggering.
But there is hope there. I’ll be speaking with the CEO of Heart Aerospace sometime this month or early next. The company has orders for a 19-seat regional electric plane and reasonable funding on its current round. All of the major aerospace manufacturers are looking at electric and electric hybrid. There’s even ZeroAvia, a hydrogen drivetrain startup that Gates’ Breakthrough Ventures is invested in.
We are a long way from having solved this knotty problem, but there is at least work being done.
Image credit: Maersk
9. Water Freight Shipping
We’re already seeing some short haul freight shipping electrifying, and ferries and the like are electrifying rapidly. It’s the medium and long haul shipping which remain untouched.
And they typically run on bunker oil, which is to say one of a hundred different variants of barely refined petroleum products that are below diesel and barely above crude oil. It’s nasty stuff and heavily polluting in addition to its CO2 emissions. As Mark Z. Jacobson points out, they emit a lot of unburned hydrocarbons and soot, black carbon, which has a very high global warming potential.
I spent an hour recently talking with a PhD mechanical engineer who has spent the last four years of his career designing, constructing, installing and certifying the scrubbers that go on these vessels to reduce particulate and chemical emissions down to barely tolerable levels that among other things, pass the visual test with seemingly harmless white smoke coming out of the stacks. Non-trivial and does nothing for the CO2.
Long haul oceanic shipping is one of the only modes of transportation where I consider hydrogen drivetrains to have an actual play.
But oceanic shipping is the worst of the worst of the problems. It’s all under flags of convenience, it’s usually in international waters and it’s a low-margin, competitive business.
DOW CHEMICAL PLANT ON FAR SIDE OF LAKE MICHIGAN
DOCUMERICA: The Environmental Protection Agency’s Program to Photographically Document Subjects of Environmental Concern, 1972 – 1977
Record Group 412: Records of the Environmental Protection Agency, 1944 – 2006
10. Industrial Processes
Industrial processes like cement, steel, and the Solvay process are way behind. They are poking around the edges so far, and there are enormous amounts of industrial commodities being produced in high-carbon approaches. There are bright spots of innovation that have no penetration, like renewably-powered green hydrogen reduction of iron ore into steel foam, and electrochemistry processes that displace the Solvay process for carbonates (look for the CleanTechnica three-part series publishing Aug 14/15 featuring Agora Energy Technologies which covers this). But these are early days. Lots of work to do there.
And then, ugliness ensues.
Shell refinery, image credit: Shell
Oil and gas. Coal. The fossil fuel industry is greenwashing hard and despite its claims, is massively failing to address the most pressing concern of the 21st Century.
Ørsted was mentioned earlier. They got it: oil and gas are destructive coming and going. And they got out. Now they are productive members of society.
The rest of the companies that are still standing after the bloodbath of bankruptcies and mergers of the past decade? Nothingburgers.
Carving off molecule-thin shavings of their emissions to do enhanced oil recovery, push ‘blue’ hydrogen, and promoting it into some vague semblance of green, while lobbying hard with politicians they fund to make it seem like a solution, instead of a continuation of the problem.
Much of industry is responding well to the biggest issue of this century, one we’ve jointly created over the past 300 years. But there is still much work to be done.
And that work requires strong governmental pressure through regulations, carbon taxes and active elimination of the worst emitters. There are elections coming in three major western emitting countries in the next 18 months which will be key: Canada (snap election for Sept 2021, per sources), the US 2022 mid terms, and the Australian federal election. If you aren’t already working in your country to ensure governments focused on climate action are elected, today is the best time to start.
New filings have revealed that BYD is about to release a ridiculous 3,000 hp electric supercar: the Yangwang U9 Track Edition.
BYD already shocked the world when it launched the Yangwang U9, its first all-electric supercar.
It featured four advanced electric motors with a combined power of nearly 1,300 horsepower. The U9 can accelerate from 0 to 62 mph (0 to 100 km/h) in just 2.36 seconds.
With a motor at each wheel and a highly advanced electric-air suspension, the U9 can turn on itself and even jump over potholes.
But that was only the beginning.
Based on a new filing with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), BYD is preparing to launch a new ‘Track Edition’ of the Yangwang U9:
When an automaker releases a “track” version of a car, it typically primarily features body changes for better aerodynamic performance, adding downforce, and it will also often feature bigger brakes.
The Yangwang U9 ‘Track Edition’ appears to feature all that… and much more.
The filing reveals that BYD updated the motors at each wheel to a new 555 kW motor. That’s a higher-performing motor than in most performance electric vehicles. The U9 Track Edition has four of them for a total of 2,220 kW (3,019 hp).
I would have thought that this was a typo if it wasn’t for the insane electric vehicles coming out of China these days.
Here are a few pictures from the MIIT filing:
There are a lot of performance specs that are not included in the MIIT filing. Therefore, it will be interesting to see when the vehicle is fully unveiled and BYD reveals what kind of performance it can achieve with 3,000 hp packed in 4 electric motors.
Here are a few other features mentioned in the filing:
Standard features:
- 20-inch wheels with 325/35 R20 tyres
- Carbon-fibre roof
- Large fixed carbon-fibre rear wing
- Rear diffuser with adjustable blades for aerodynamic optimisation
Optional aerodynamic parts:
- Standard or enhanced carbon-fibre front splitter
- Electric rear wing
Electrek’s Take
How are they going to keep that thing from flying away? Seriously.
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The eBike space is crowded in 2025, but the Kingbull Jumper Go stands out with a rare combination of features: a compact 20” frame, full suspension, a step-through design, and a powerful Class 3 motor capable of hitting high speeds. Whether you’re commuting through the city, riding off-road trails, or just looking for a versatile, approachable ride, the Jumper Go delivers serious performance, especially for the price.
Key specs
On paper, the Kingbull Jumper Go has all the hardware you would want and need for its size and price. It blends commuter-friendly features with the components you’d expect from more premium off-road eBikes. These specs on paper translate to real-world use amazingly. Here’s a quick rundown of the key specs:
- Motor: 750W Bafang rear hub motor
- Top Speed: 28 MPH with pedal assist (up to 40 MPH unlocked; check local laws)
- Battery: 48V 20Ah Samsung removable battery
- Max Range: Up to 80 miles per charge
- Gearing: Shimano 8-speed drivetrain
- Brakes: Tektro hydraulic disc brakes
- Suspension: Front 80mm fork + rear mid-frame air shock
- Tires: 20” x 4.0” Kenda fat tires (puncture-resistant)
- Frame: Step-through aluminum frame with internal cable routing
- Display: Integrated LED display with speed, assist level, and battery status
- Lighting: Integrated 48V headlight and rear brake light
- Included Accessories: Rear cargo rack, full fenders, mini tool kit, zip ties, tire pump
Together, these features make the Kingbull Jumper Go a rare all-in-one package: powerful, approachable, and ready to handle daily commutes and adventures without compromise.
Real-world experience
I have been living with the Kingbull Jumper Go for two weeks now and have been using it as my daily driver. I have used it for pretty much everything, from small grocery runs, to running a quick errand, to just taking me from place to place. Here is what you need to know.
The setup
The setup was surprisingly simple. The bike has everything needed for assembly, including a mini tool kit, zip ties, and even a tire pump. The Kingbull Jumper Go comes about 80% pre-assembled, with the rear tire and monitor intact. I had to install the front tire, front fender, handlebar, headlight, and seat. Assembly took roughly 20 minutes, and I am someone who does not do this often. It was great that I did not need any of my own tools to get the bike ready. The final thing I did was ensure it was fully charged before getting on it.
The ride
On the road, the 750W motor gives you quick acceleration and plenty of torque, easily handling hills and the urban terrain I live in. The five levels of pedal assist and throttle control give you full flexibility in how much effort you want to put in. I got the bike to almost 30mph with the pedal assist and to 22mph using the throttle. The suspension system, which features an 80mm front fork and a rear mid-air shock, makes city potholes and light off-road trails smooth and manageable.
I live in New Jersey, and if you know anything about our roads, they are terribly maintained and have potholes everywhere. The Kingbull Jumper Go kept the ride very smooth and managed those potholes perfectly. I also took it through some gravel roads, trails, and through some wet terrain, and it was great. The fat tires gives you a strong sense of confidence both on road and when you are dealing with a more challenging terrain.
The design
The step-through frame is especially helpful for beginners and for riders who are sharing this bike with someone who is a different height. The step-through frame also makes it easy to dismount or quickly react by easily putting your feet down without feeling like you are going to tip over.
The 20” Kenda fat tires provide great traction and comfort on surfaces ranging from pavement to grass and gravel. The Tektro hydraulic brakes are responsive and reliable, offering solid control even at higher speeds. You also get a fantastic LED display with real-time speed, distance traveled, and battery life. It is also plenty bright, so the display is easily visible even in the brightest conditions.
After riding this for two weeks in both urban and off-road settings, the Kingbull Jumper Go proved to be equally capable as a commuter eBike, urban cruiser, and all-terrain bike. Its compact frame makes it easier to handle and store compared to larger full-size fat-tire bikes, but without compromising on performance.
Kingbull Jumper Go Pricing and availability
The Kingbull Jumper Go is currently available through Kingbull’s official website for just under $1,699. However, they have a limited-time summer promotion offering $100 OFF with code Electrek, bringing the price down to $1,599. That discount makes it one of the best values on the market for a full-suspension, Class 3 fat-tire eBike. Kingbull’s 2-year warranty also backs it and offers local test ride availability in California, giving potential buyers added peace of mind and confidence in the brand.
Check out the Kingbull Jumper Go today!
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Yep, I did it again. I bought something weird and crazy from China. It’s a mini electric jet boat. “What’s a mini electric jet boat?” you might be asking. Think: comically small one-seater boat with an electrically powered jet ski drivetrain.
Basically, I plopped down a not insignificant amount of money online and then crossed my fingers. Here’s what happened next.
Firstly, this is kind of par for the course for me. If you’ve been following my writing for any significant period of time, you’ll have learned two things about me. I like e-bikes and I like buying weird electric vehicles from China that I don’t need. It’s a problem, I know. I’m going to get help one day. But that day is not today.
Because today I’ve got a new electric jet boat. You can see my unboxing and testing video of this aquatic miracle here, or keep reading below for the full story of how this happened.
So here’s how it went. I’ve spent years writing a mostly-weekly column on the fun and weird Alibaba electric vehicles I find in my time-wasting window-shopping searches. A couple of years ago, one of them was a mini electric jet boat. And I’ve wanted one ever since.
So I started researching factories in China that build these things and talked to a number of them. Some seemed fairly new. Others seemed like fronts or merely trading companies. And they all seemed pretty shady. But this isn’t my first rodeo and so I chose the one that seemed the least risky and started talking details. I use a Chinese messaging service similar to WhatsApp that makes it a lot easier to communicate with the factories, and the lovely girl who works their sales office showed me several models and features. Together, we worked through the details and specs until I had planned out basically what I wanted.
Then it came time to pay.
This is always the scariest part and so I wired to China more money than a bad idea should cost. Over there, it’s common to do a 30% down payment and 70% balance payment upon completion, so that’s what I offered. I’m glad I did because production took several months longer than I expected, and I was starting to get worried, but fortunately, the factory was sending me fairly regular pictures and video updates of progress, which was comforting. After a few months, my order was finally ready, and so they packaged it up and shipped it off to me.
I should also mention that while I normally use FOB (free on board) or CIF (cost, insurance, freight) terms for these kinds of deals where I get some new toy in from China, this particular case was a bit riskier, and so I went with DDP (delivered duty paid) terms. The two former options leave most of the work on me to ship and import the thing, while the last option means the seller basically handles everything until there’s a janky wooden crate dropped in my driveway. DDP terms are always more expensive, and many factories don’t want to mess with it since it leaves most of the work of shipping and importing on the seller or their freight forwarder, which I preferred in this case.
This was also before all the new Trump tariffs this year, and so duties were much lower (somewhere around 27-28% total, I believe. Now they are probably 2-3x that much).
But with all of the work of actually dealing with getting the thing now finished, it was time to crack open the box. Inside was my shiny blue electric jet boat! I had it shipped to my parents’ place in Florida because they have a decently large pond where I could test it. There I got it open and hauled it back to the pond in what else but my electric mini truck that I bought from China nearly four years ago. It has since lived a loving but not easy life as a farm truck, and this isn’t even one of the weirdest things that has graced its bed in the last few years.
The little boat is so small that it actually fits nicely in the little bed of my mini-truck, and it was a great example of why I even wanted this thing to begin with: it’s small enough to fit in a car, so you can take it to the lake or ocean without needing a boat trailer.
Even a jet-ski needs a trailer, but you could take this little vessel to the shore with a kayak rack on your Tesla, or even on a decent car! Just kidding, I don’t even own a car… unless you count that mini-truck that I gave to my parents.
At the pond I dropped the boat down onto the grass, dragged it the last bit of the way down the bank and splashed it right into the drink. From there, I just needed to plop the 5 kWh LiFePO4 battery into the underseat compartment and I was ready to go.
There were no instructions, so it took me a couple of minutes to figure out the right combination of buttons to push and key turns to actually start it up, but from the first push of the accelerator, I knew this thing was wild!
It was supposed to be just over 30 mph capable (50 km/h or 27 knots), but the pond is only around 300 feet long and so the opposite bank comes at you mighty fast. I think I only got it up to around half its top speed because 1) I didn’t want to run aground, and 2) I was legitimately scared to go faster.
The boat comes with these weird stainless steel mounts on the side, and it turns out they are for this ridiculous looking inflatable bumper thing that reminds me of a big toilet seat. I didn’t install it because I hate how it ruins the sleek look of the boat. But I instantly discovered why they designed it, since the jet boat feels horribly unstable at slow speeds. As soon as you turn sharply and let off the throttle at slow speeds, you start heeling over significantly. It’s a very uncomfortable feeling since you’re sitting at the water line and feel like you’re going to be thrown out of the boat. The ballast of the huge battery sitting so low, plus whatever actual ballast they build into these things, probably means you won’t really capsize. But it sure feels like you’re going for a swim soon.
Turning at speed is much nicer, but if you’re not yet planing (going fast enough to rise out of the water and glide over the surface instead of just floating due to water displacement), it just feels like you’re going to rock yourself right out in a turn. The boat was obviously designed to handle at high speeds, not low speeds. It doesn’t have the wide beam of a jet ski for stability, so that inflatable toilet seat gives it low-speed stability.
But alas, I just couldn’t bring myself to install the nautical version of training wheels on that beautiful thing, so I pushed through it and just kept it at fairly high speeds in the pond. It was a blast, and with my dad there watching me, I was excited to give him a turn too.
Oh, I forgot to mention, I actually bought two of them.
With my dad’s boat unboxed, we both got in our own mini jet boats and had a blast ripping high-speed loops around his backyard pond.
These things are insanely powerful for what feels like a stubby kayak when you sit inside it, and the performance gives you an ear to grin.
Just be prepared for your face to turn to terror the first time you let off the throttle too abruptly and take a sharp turn.
As fun as they were though, we still weren’t even past half way down on the accelerator pedal, and so I knew that a larger body of water was going to be in our future.
These are motorized vessels and so they require registration to use them in public waterways in most states. It’s not like a kayak or canoe where you can just put in anywhere and pretty much be alright with the law. And in Florida, where the state makes a lot of its money from its waterways, they actually enforce this stuff.
I imagine I can get the boats properly registered with hull numbers for use in public waterways, but for expediency’s sake, I set my sights on a big private lake in a local eco-friendly planned community. The cool thing is that these huge lakes are off-limits to combustion engine watercraft, which means they’re basically only for kayakers and canoers, or the rare person who has an electric boat.
I’m a rare person.
So with the entire lake empty, I brought my jet boat over in the back of my family’s car and put in at the kayak dock.
If you watched my video above, you’ll already know how that went (complete with Beach Boys-style song montage). But for those who prefer to read instead of watching an awesome little jet boat rocket around a big lake, just know that it was an absolute riot. The mini electric jet boat is insanely fast and skipped the glassy surface of the pond like a pebble with a rocket engine on it.
Of course, the surface didn’t stay glassy long with the massive wake I was sending out, and that meant soon I was getting airborne, hopping my own wake while pulling tight figure eights.
With around 25 minutes of boating and filming, I had dropped the battery from 100% to 70%. Despite the high power, that big battery was impressively lasting!
The whole experience proved to me how right I was about the convenience of this boat format. This whole exploit was simple, a word that is almost never used when discussing boat ownership. To get to the water, I simply loaded the boat in the back of the car and then used a cheap Amazon kayak trailer to waddle it the 100 feet or so from the parking lot to the dock. The boat is still quite heavy – I’d guess at least 150 lb (70 kg) or so. But lifting one side at a time is doable by one dude, and the kayak trailer made it easy enough to move on my own across land.
There was no boat trailer necessary. No searching for a boat ramp. No hoping to stay off of Miami Boat Ramp YouTube channels lampooning people who don’t know what they’re doing with a trailer, etc. It was the boating experience of a jet-ski meets the ownership experience of a kayak.
For anyone who lives along the water, this would be an amazing toy to own. There are so many people with lakefront property who could have their own mini electric boat to tool around on whenever they want. Or if you live close to the coast, you could keep the boat in the garage with a kayak hoist and just drive it on down to the coast for fun. These things practically sell themselves. Cheaper than an electric surfboard and nearly as portable.
Which brings me to cost. I ended up paying around $5,500 for each boat, which is a lot to risk on this stuff, with only a hope that it would work out and that I could make some of the money back on my video and writing. And if you’re thinking, “Wow, this guy plopped down $11k on this stuff,” then I have two things to tell you. First, a Jet Ski would have cost more and been a huge hassle. And two, I didn’t spend $11k; I spent a lot more.
In fact, I couldn’t stop myself at the time (and considered it something of a business expense – hey, I’m working right now, people!), so it turns out that I actually bought three of these things. I know this sounds like an excuse, but it just made sense with how much shipping was already costing me! I mean, c’mon – I couldn’t afford not to.
Though I still have the third one in the crate and I’ll probably end up selling it new in box, if someone wants to find my email and make me an offer.
That also means I have two boats that I plan to keep, and I need names for them. Please hit me with your suggestions in the comment section. One of my subscribers suggested an absolute banger of a name with Sunny Side Up for my yellow and white solar-powered Chinese electric pleasure boat, and that’s what I went with.
Now I will say that as fun as these things are, they aren’t perfect. One of the boats arrived with its bilge pump motor always running due to a faulty float switch (oh yeah, they even have a bilge pump!). The factory also told me that they couldn’t install real cleats through the hull, though at least they did give me a bow eye that helps with tying it up.
I’ve technically been sitting on this story for a year, and I can tell you that after a year of living out in the Florida elements, one of the boat’s paint is a bit cracked near the hinges of the seat where it gets stressed from lifting the seat up to remove the battery.
The boats are also surprisingly loud. These are the loudest EVs I’ve ever seen, and I thought the F-150 Lightning was loud! A neighbor has one and I once remarked that it sounded like a jet turbine in the summer because of all its fans running, but now I know what an EV with an actual jet turbine sounds like, or at least a water jet turbine. To be more accurate, it’s not the boat that’s loud, but rather the cavitating water inside the jet turbine that is constantly screaming as its vacuum cavities repeatedly expand and collapse as they shoot out the back of the boat’s vectored thrust nozzle. It sounds like a wet, angry bat out of hell. A guy watching me from the shore of the lake actually asked if it was a two-stroke! So don’t think this is going to be a silent boat. The motor is silent, but the shooting water is loud.
Then there’s the battery. It weighs nearly 80 pounds and you have to pull the battery out to charge it – you can’t leave it in the boat and charge it since the charge and discharge port are one and the same.
I also burned out one of the chargers when I accidentally let the charger tip fall on some wet grass while it was plugged in. Poof. The magic smoke was out of the charger, and it wasn’t going back in. I’ll have to find another 84V charger and solder this massive and unique charging connector onto its output wire.
Speaking of the chargers, they are 2,500-watt chargers. They’ll impressively fill the batteries in just over two hours, but they are so powerful that they won’t run on any normal household 120V outlet. I got lucky that my dad’s garage had an RV outlet with a 30A breaker; otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to use the charger.
But downsides aside, the rest of the experience was incredible! I love these things! They’re just so much fun, and they bring a smile to everyone’s face. Since I bought them a year ago, I’m seeing many more options on Alibaba for other factories starting to make and sell mini jet boats. I can all but guarantee you that within a year or two, there will be people re-selling mini jet boats in the US. Just make sure you go with a reputable company that has done its homework and can stand behind these things. A couple of years ago, I started an electric tractor company based on making a long list of improvements to what was originally a German-designed and Chinese-produced electric loader. We developed it (and subsequent models) into our own new design, offer full warranties, and keep a US warehouse stocked with replacement parts. That’s the only way to do business right, so don’t get hosed a few months from now by some fly-by-night company that read this article and then thought it would be a good idea to start hawking Chinese mini jet boats in the US. These things are quite rough around the edges (literally and figuratively) and would take some significant work to make them safe and reliable for a Western market.
And in the same vein, I don’t actually recommend anyone try and buy one of these from China, either. There’s just too much risk and too big a chance that you’ll get ripped off in the end, or you’ll get bent over a shipping container by customs and end up paying several times the purchase price in shipping and import fees.
I don’t have any plans to import and sell these, largely because of the liability (imagine how much I pay in business liability insurance just to run a tractor company) and the fact that there are too many design changes I’d need to make to turn it into something I’d be proud to stand behind and put my name on. I mostly go on these real-life Alibaba escapades because 1) I enjoy testing the weird and fun things you can find in a country that has certain product safety and manufacturing advantages compared to the West (i.e. less of the first and more of the second), and 2) so that I can share these experiences with my audience, most of whom will never have the ability to try these things themselves.
But hey, as a neat toy for my parents’ pond and the local lakes or Gulf of Mexico fun days, these are going to be perfect for us!
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