You can now buy an amphibious electric vehicle for $50,000
The Atlas EV is the world’s first fully electric amphibious 8×8 XTV, and it can be yours for just $50,000.
You may be asking why. Why not!
We are seeing new electric vehicles come to the market almost every week now, so it was just a matter of time until we saw an amphibious electric vehicle.
And I’m not talking about a military vehicle here, but an actual recreational amphibious electric vehicle that anyone with $50,000 burning a hole in their pocket can buy.
Argo, a Canada-based company manufacturing “extreme terrain vehicles,” is behind the new Atlas EV.
It already offers a wide array of fossil fuel-powered off-road vehicles, including amphibious ones, but the Atlas EV is their first all-electric one. The company describes the vehicle on its website:
Built with a legacy of Go Anywhere ingenuity and optimized with over a decade of distinguished research and development within the electrification and unmanned sector. ARGO, the world leader for amphibious extreme terrain vehicles is proud to bring you the Atlas EV. The world’s first fully electric amphibious 8×8 XTV. Outfitted with a single-drive electric motor generating 107ft-lbs of torque, this fully electric amphibian is equipped with 28 kWh of battery power with enhanced regenerative braking. The advanced hill ascend/descend assist allows this machine to stop on and turn on a dime while on inclines or declines.
Argo doesn’t elaborate on the range of the vehicle. It is a heavy and inefficient vehicle to have just a 28 kWh battery pack, but with a limited speed of 25 mph (40 km/h) on land and 3 mph (5 km/h) on water, it should still be able to travel decent distances.
The Atlas EV is a four-seater, but it turns into a two-seater if you take it on the water.
Its load capacity on land and water is quite different: 437 lb. (198 kg) on land and 237 lb. (107 kg) on water.
The Atlas EV can be recreational, but also functional as it is equipped with an “internally recessed 3,000-lb. winch that provides a sleek, low-profile design while being fully functional.”
The vehicle is equipped with 12-inch touchscreen to access all the vehicle’s information.
Argo describes the system:
Acting as a command center for the Atlas EV, the centralized 12-inch touch screen is integrated with vehicle location technology, intelligent terrain mapping, on demand vehicle health reporting, inclinometer, rearview back-up camera, hi and lo beam indicator and digital gear indicator. This comprehensive display offers a whole new meaning to “bells and whistles.”
The system is equipped with a decent number of off-roading features:
It is basically equipped with all the same features Argo is known for in its XTV vehicles, but there’s one thing where its Atlas EV differs significantly from the others, and that’s the price.
At $50,000, its first electric vehicle starts at about $15,000 more than its next most expensive 8×8 amphibious vehicle.
With just a 28 kWh battery pack and a 107 kW motor, that’s going to be hard to justify for most people, but you do get an amphibious zero-emission vehicle, and that’s hard to find.
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In a joint statement, French and German economists have called on governments to adopt “a common approach” to decarbonize European trucking fleets – and they’re calling for a focus on fully electric trucks, not hydrogen.
France and Germany are the two largest economies in the EU, and they share similar challenges when it comes to freight decarbonization. The two countries also share a border, and the traffic between the two nations generates major cross-border flows that create common externalities between the two countries.
At the same time, the EU’s transport sector has struggled to reduce emissions at the same rate as other industries – and road freight in particular is a major contributor to harmful carbon emissions issue due to that industry’s heavy reliance on diesel-powered trucks.
And for once, it seems like rail isn’t a viable option:
While rail remains competitive mainly for heavy, homogeneous goods over long distances. Most freight in Europe is indeed transported over distances of less than 200 km and involves consignment weights of up to 30 tonnes (GCEE, 2024) In most such cases, transportation by rail instead of truck is not possible or not competitive. Moreover, taking into account the goods currently transported in intermodal transport units over distances of more than 300 km, the modal shift potential from road to rail would be only 6% in Germany and less than 2% in France.
That leaves trucks – and, while numerous government incentives currently exist to promote the parallel development of both hydrogen and battery electric vehicle infrastructures, the study is clear in picking a winner.
“Policies should focus on battery-electric trucks (BET) as these represent the most mature and market-ready technology for road freight transport,” reads the the FGCEE statement. “Hence, to ramp-up usage of BET public funding should be used to accelerate the roll-out of fast-charging networks along major corridors and in private depots.”
The appeal was signed by the co-chair of the advisory body on the German side is the chairwoman of the German Council of Economic Experts, Monika Schnitzer. Camille Landais co-chairs the French side. On the German side, the appeal was signed by four of the five experts; Nuremberg-based energy economist Veronika Grimm (who also sits on the National Hydrogen Council, which is committed to promoting H2 trucks and filling stations) did not sign.
You can read an English version of the CAE FGCEE joint statement here.
Electrek’s Take
MAN Trucks’ CEO famously said that it was “impossible” for hydrogen to compete with BEVs, and even committed to building 200 hydrogen-powered semi truck to prove out that hypothesis.
He’s not alone. MAN’s board member for research and development, Frederik Zohm, said that the company is the one saying hydrogen still has years to go. “(MAN) continues to research fuel cell technology based on battery electrics,” he said, in a statement quoted by Hydrogen Insight, before another board member added that, “we (MAN) expect that, in the future, we will be able to best serve the vast majority of our customers’ transport applications with battery-electric trucks.”
With companies like Volvo and Renault and now Mercedes racking up millions of miles on their respective battery electric semi truck fleets, it’s no longer even close. EV is the way.
SOURCE | IMAGES: CAE FGCEE; via Electrive.
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GE Vernova has produced over half the turbines needed for SunZia Wind, which will be the largest wind farm in the Western Hemisphere when it comes online in 2026.
GE Vernova has manufactured enough turbines at its Pensacola, Florida, factory to supply over 1.2 gigawatts (GW) of the turbines needed for the $5 billion, 2.4 GW SunZia Wind, a project milestone. The wind farm will be sited in Lincoln, Torrance, and San Miguel counties in New Mexico.
At a ribbon-cutting event for Pensacola’s new customer experience center, GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik noted that since 2023, the company has invested around $70 million in the Pensacola factory.
The Pensacola investments are part of the announcement GE Vernova made in January that it will invest nearly $600 million in its US factories and facilities over the next two years to help meet the surging electricity demands globally. GE Vernova says it’s expecting its investments to create more than 1,500 new US jobs.
Vic Abate, CEO of GE Vernova Wind, said, “Our dedicated employees in Pensacola are working to address increasing energy demands for the US. The workhorse turbines manufactured at this world-class factory are engineered for reliability and scalability, ensuring our customers can meet growing energy demand.”
SunZia Wind and Transmission will create US history’s largest clean energy infrastructure project.
Read more: The largest clean energy project in US history closes $11B, starts full construction
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