Oops, I did it again. I bought another quirky, cheap, yet kind of awesome-looking electric vehicle on the Chinese mega-shopping site Alibaba. This time it was a five-seater electric boat.
Here’s how it happened.
You may or may not be familiar with my weekly tongue-in-cheek column The Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week. It’s a chance to take an eye-opening dumpster dive through the weirdest electric vehicles that Chinese engineers dream up and bring to life.
Usually, it’s just a window shopping exercise where I pluck something interesting out of the pile – like a ride-on backyard electric train. But occasionally I find something so fun-looking and so cheap that I just have to have it.
It certainly can’t hold a candle to the best premium electric boats on the market, but it will hopefully be good enough for some nice use on the lake and cruising the calm mangrove-lined rivers of Florida.
How our graphics guy imagines this Chinese electric boat would look in the Maldives, apparently…
Designing my electric boat
The first thing to decide on was the model. The factory that I found on Alibaba had a ton of options to choose from.
There were cute little two-seaters, massive 8-10 seaters, and everything in between.
I decided on the 14-foot (4.3 meter) flat-bottom boat you see below due to its compact size (and thus cheaper shipping) and its general utility.
It would be big enough to bring the family on, and also wouldn’t be too cramped if I just wanted to take it out with my wife. The two-seater options seemed like little dinghies, so this felt like the Goldilocks option.
I also really liked the front entry design, since I could just nose it in right on the bank of a lake or river even without a dock, making it easy for everyone to hop on and off. It could also likely serve as a nice swim platform. A short rope ladder mounted on the front cleats would be a great way to get back into the boat after taking a dip.
I spec’ed the boat with the factory, where I was communicating with Frank over the various details. I decided to have them build mine without batteries since I could pick those up stateside and wouldn’t have to worry about international shipping issues with lithium batteries.
The electric boat requires 24V, meaning I could go with a pair of 12V 100Ah LiFePO4 batteries. But to increase my range further and just give me some added peace of mind that I won’t have to use my emergency folding paddle, I plan to use a pair of 12V 200Ah batteries. At 12.8V, that will give me 5.12 kWh of battery.
Theoretically you could save a bit of cash by using lead acid marine batteries, but those are heavy as hell and also don’t last as long. I’d rather have the peace of mind of good-quality LiFePO4 that will surely outlive the boat itself.
The 12V 200Ah batteries I plan to use
The boat comes with a 500W motor, but the thing looks beefier than any 500W motor I’ve ever seen, so I think it should be plenty powerful.
It’s also a belt drive setup with an inboard motor, which is kind of funny because normally inboard motors are found in higher-end boats and sailboats. With an ICE setup, outboards are a simple and easy solution. But since this is an electric boat, I get to brag about my inboard and make it sound like a much fancier boat… until someone actually sees it.
The belt drive setup also means it will be very easy to upgrade in the future, which I plan to do. A larger motor might snag me a bit more speed.
The specs sheet says this electric boat can get up to 10 km/h (6 mph or 5.4 knots), but I think that’s probably with a single occupant. I don’t expect this to be a speed boat by any stretch of the imagination.
My motor mounted inside the ship’s hull
There were a number of different cleat options for me to choose from, from traditional to eyes, and several options for their placement.
I decided to delete the eye cleat that was right in the middle of the front entry because it seemed like a trip hazard.
I’ve found that when purchasing from China and designing a product, it helps to be as clear as possible with your instructions. Since they offered so many different cleat styles and placement options, I made the image below to send to the factory so they’d see exactly what I meant.
It helps to be as clear as possible with your instructions to the factory.
The last decision was color. Frank told me he could paint it any color I wanted, and could mix it up as well.
I decided on yellow for two reasons: I think it will pop nicely in the eventual YouTube thumbnail, and in the same token, if I ever break down in the middle of the channel, I’ll be nice and visible to oncoming boat traffic. Making it easy for the Coast Guard helicopter to spot me isn’t a bad thing either.
Hopefully that will never be an issue, but if I’m going to be a sitting duck, then I might as well be a yellow duck.
Buying an electric boat on Alibaba
My boat was now designed, and the last thing to do was pay for it. The boat itself was $1,080, but I nearly keeled over (c’mon, I get one!) when Frank told me the shipping price was over $3,000!
Sea freight ain’t cheap, especially in the waning months of the COVID-19 pandemic when everyone is having supply chain issues and ordering like crazy. He advised me that if I waited a bit, prices would likely come down since that had been the trend in container pricing over the last few months.
I waited and it turned out that Frank was right. Each week the price dropped a bit. After a few months it was around $2,000 and I decided to go for it. That’s still twice the price of the boat itself, but I didn’t want to wait any longer. and I also wanted to make sure the boat arrived for prime boating season in winter (when Florida is actually super nice to be in).
I paid a down payment of 30%, and Frank got to work building my boat. He showed me pictures of the partially assembled boat several weeks later, and eventually the boat was finished. I paid the final 70% of the balance and Frank got my little boat on a bigger boat.
Progress picture of my boat during production
I chose to do LCL shipping (less than a container load) because it was the most economical. Basically, that means my boat goes in a shipping container with everyone else’s stuff that also chose LCL shipping. We all split the price of the container and we actually get a pretty good price because the container is packed efficiently and the cost divvied up among all of us. I had to wait a few more days, but my container was finally packed and it was on a ship.
After my electric boat was ready, but before it was packed though, I had a video call with Frank to see the boat up close. It was great to see a live view of the boat and to get a walk-around with an explanation of the parts.
I also got a little tour of the other awesome boats in Frank’s factory, which include a smattering of weird, silly, normal, and surprisingly high-quality boats. He even has some boats with enclosed cabins. I made a whole video of it if you want to check it out.
Screengrab from my video-chat video with the factory after my boat was ready.
What comes next?
Frank packaged up my boat in a massive wooden shipping crate, which I fully expect to be harder to open than I would like.
The boat itself is now on the water, having already passed through the Panama Canal and en route to the US East Coast. For those that live on the US West Coast and are balking at the shipping price I paid, understand that it would have been a good bit cheaper to ship to California since it’s a straight shot from China and you don’t have a couple of continents and one expensive canal in the way.
Now I’m waiting for my boat to arrive so I can get it through customs and then trucked over to my parent’s place in Florida. Customs is always a crapshoot in terms of how quickly it goes through. In this case, the boat is electric and so I don’t have to deal with any EPA certifications on a boat engine. And since I shipped it without batteries, I don’t have to worry about those certifications either. So with any luck, it will slide through fairly smoothly and the duties will be minimal. Even with import taxes, how much can they be on a $1,000 boat?
The last step will be to register it in Florida. I’ll add some life jackets, an emergency paddle or two, navigational lights, and a few other bits and pieces. I’m also planning to put around 500W of solar panels on the canopy too, which should give it nearly as much charging power as it is draining, making it capable of infinite range (when the sun is out, at least).
Meanwhile I’m looking for a used trailer so I can move it around, and I’m still trying to decide on a name for the boat. I’m partial to Current Affair, but if you have any good electric boat puns for the name then I’m all ears. One of my YouTube subscribers suggested Sunny Side Up, so that’s the high point to beat.
Once the boat arrives and I get a chance to test it out, I’ll be sure to update you all on how it looks and, of course, I’ll share the maiden voyage. The first “sea trials” will likely be in a private 1-acre lake, but assuming it stays hull-down and generally above the water then I’ll be taking it to a river that feeds out into a nice little bay with beautiful mangroves and plenty of manatees and dolphins.
I don’t think I’ll plan to take it out of the bay into the Gulf of Mexico. It could do it, but the little boat probably wouldn’t have the power to fight the strong current required to make it back into the bay. I’ve done it in a kayak before and was probably using all of my own 500W of Wheaties power in a much lighter boat to fight the current at the inlet.
But hey, if I do get swept out into the Gulf, then at least I’ll be in a bright yellow boat! Why make the Coast Guard’s job any more difficult?
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Stark Future, the Spanish electric motorcycle maker that turned the off-road world on its head, just locked in a fresh round of funding, pushing its total capital raised past €100 million. And unlike the big, flashy VC rounds we usually see, this one came mostly from existing backers and a few hand-picked newcomers, including some heavy hitters from the MotoGP world.
In what has become classic Stark style, the round was closed quickly and quietly, underscoring just how confident investors are in the brand’s growth trajectory. CEO and founder Anton Wass says the company intentionally offered a “very attractive valuation” to those who already believed in the mission.
“We managed to close it within a couple of weeks,” said Wass. “It’s a strong testament to the results our team has created.”
And it’s not just hype. Stark has proven it can build bikes that not only compete with gas-powered motocross machines, but completely outclass them. Their flagship model, the all-electric Stark VARG, claims the title of most powerful motocross bike ever made. Riders have already racked up tens of millions of kilometers on the VARG, and the bike has helped convert thousands of motocross enthusiasts to battery power. The model even got e-motos banned from the X-Games when the organizers feared that gas-powered bikes couldn’t keep up.
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That kind of traction, paired with the company’s rapid expansion into over 70 countries, explains why investors are still lining up to get a piece of the action.
But what really makes Stark stand out in the electric motorcycle world is its quick path to profitability. That’s a rare word in the electric motorcycle space, especially for such a young company. Just two years after their first deliveries, and within six years of founding, Stark Future is profitable and thriving. With each passing year, they seem to be improving margins, growing revenues, and launching new platforms.
And speaking of new platforms, those are coming, too. The company teased “very exciting new products” on the way, though didn’t drop specifics just yet. From the rumor mill though, it sounds like the company is preparing street models that could give gas bikes a run for their money. And if they’re anything like the VARG, we can certainly expect bikes that push boundaries and continue proving Wass’s bold thesis: electric motorcycles can outperform internal combustion in just about every way.
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U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent attends a press conference at government quarters Rosenbad after the trade talks between the U.S. and China concluded, in Stockholm, Sweden, July 29, 2025.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reportedly told Reuters on Monday that there are “other authorities that can be used” to uphold the tariffs. One of them could be the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, Bessent said.
Since markets in the U.S. were closed for the Labor Day holiday on Monday, they didn’t have a chance to respond to both Bessent’s comment and the court’s ruling, which was announced after the bell on Friday.
For now, futures tied to U.S. stocks were little changed Monday night stateside. Investors could have gotten used to the volatile nature of Trump tariffs and are taking a wait-and-see approach.
No point, after all, to prepare for an outcome that might lead to the start of another legal battle. It’s never over till it’s over — it’s just another day inTrump’s America.
What you need to know today
Bessent expects the Supreme Court to uphold Trump tariffs. And if they are struck down by the court, “there are lots of other authorities that can be used,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Monday, Reuters reported.
Trump said India had offered to remove tariffs on U.S. However, he did not elaborate on the claim. Trump also said Monday that trade ties with India is “a totally one sided disaster!” His comments came after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited China for a security summit.
Takeaways from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit. The two-day event was largely seen as a showcase of Beijing’s push for a new world order. Key developments include: thawing India-China relations, a Xi-Putin-Modi troika, AI partnership and a new development bank.
Asia-Pacific markets trade mixed Tuesday. South Korea’s Kospi index rose around 0.8% as the country’s inflation in August came in lower than expected. U.S. stock futures were mostly flat. On Monday, U.S. markets were closed for Labor Day.
[PRO] A Chinese property stock defying the slump. The company has “already returned more capital than they ever raised from capital markets,” wrote Barclays — and its stock has an implied upside of over 40% from the bank’s price target.
And finally…
Sports club Suzhou Shishan opened the Chinese city’s first pickleball court in January 2024, according to the company.
Online sales of pickleball paddles and related equipment in China have skyrocketed this year to an average of $1.2 million in monthly sales as of July — an increase of more than six-fold versus the year-ago period, according to data from WPIC Marketing + Technologies.
Pickleball’s recent growth in China has different business implications. In contrast to U.S. suburbs, big Asian cities don’t tend to have large neighborhood spaces, said Patrick Yan, founder of an agency representing Asian pickleball players. “All these courts have to be built by people running businesses. They’re operating for profit.”
Tesla has finally released its ‘Master Plan Part 4’ and it’s nothing more than a smorgasbord of AI promises about its humanoid robot, which can’t even serve popcorn.
For more than a year, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been teasing the release of his ‘Master Plan Part 4’ for the company.
Since 2006, Musk has been releasing “secret master plans” for Tesla to explain the company’s broader mission and product roadmap.
Musk himself recently admitted that Master Plan Part 2, released in 2016, is not even completed yet. He believes that will happen “next year”, but we heard that one before.
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Master Plan Part 3 was released in 2023, and it was about scaling when, in fact, Tesla’s electric vehicle sales have been in decline since then. They peaked in 2023.
Now, ‘Master Plan Part 4’ was released on X, and it’s all about “sustainable abundance” through AI and robotics.
Here it is:
Introduction
Since Tesla’s founding, each iteration of our master plan has focused on our north star: to deliver unconstrained sustainability without compromise.
Humans are toolmakers. At Tesla, we make physical products at scale and at a low cost with the goal of making life better for everyone. As the influence and impact of artificial intelligence (AI) technology increases, the mission set forth in Master Plan Part IV should come as no surprise.
This next chapter in Tesla’s story will help create a world we’ve only just begun to imagine and will do so at a scale that we have yet to see. We are building the products and services that bring AI into the physical world.
We have been working tirelessly for nearly two decades to create the foundation for this technological renaissance through the development of electric vehicles, energy products and humanoid robots.
Now, we are combining our manufacturing capabilities with our autonomous prowess to deliver new products and services that will accelerate global prosperity and human thriving driven by economic growth shared by all. We are unifying our hardware and software at scale, and in doing so, we are creating a safer, cleaner and more enjoyable world.
This is sustainable abundance.
Guiding principles
Growth is infinite.
Growth in one area does not require decline in another. Shortages in resources can be remedied by improved technology, greater innovation and new ideas.
The technologies that gave us the ability to power machines led to industrial revolutions that have widened our economic landscape, creating more opportunities for all. Groundbreaking inventions like the semiconductor and the internet have expanded—not diminished—social and economic opportunities across all aspects of the human experience, from creating more jobs to providing greater access to information to enabling deeper interpersonal connections.
Our desire to push beyond what is considered achievable will foster the growth needed for truly sustainable abundance.
Innovation removes constraints.
For centuries, humanity’s primary mode of transportation was the horse. Then, over the last fifty-plus years, cars with internal combustion engines powered by fossil fuels became the standard and expected transportation method. The idea that batteries could be produced affordably and at a scale large enough to pivot the transportation industry away from fossil fuels seemed a fool’s errand—until Tesla led the way forward.
Through continued innovation, we have overcome the technological constraints of battery development and built an industry powered by renewable resources.
Technology solves tangible problems.
The products and services born out of the acceleration toward sustainable abundance will advance humanity by solving real-world problems. To further accelerate our innovation, we build each product more efficiently and more sustainably than the last.
Solar energy generation and large-scale battery storage are increasing the availability and reliability of clean electricity in our communities—and are doing so more affordably and more sustainably.
Autonomous vehicles have the capacity to dramatically improve the affordability, availability and safety of transportation while reducing pollution, particularly in our increasingly dense global cities.
Optimus—our autonomous humanoid robot—is changing not only the perception of labor itself but its availability and capability. Jobs and tasks that are particularly monotonous or dangerous can now be accomplished by other means. In this way, Optimus’s mission is to give people back more time to do what they love.
Autonomy must benefit all of humanity.
The tools we make at Tesla help us build the products that advance human prosperity.
How we develop and use autonomy—and the new capabilities it makes available to us—should be informed by its ability to enhance the human condition. Making daily life better—and safer—for all people through our autonomous technology has always been, and continues to be, our focus.
Greater access drives greater growth.
Making technologically advanced products that are affordable and available at scale is required to build a flourishing and unconstrained society. It serves to further democratize society while raising everyone’s quality of life in the process. The hallmark of meritocracy is creating opportunities that enable each person to use their skills to accomplish whatever they imagine.
Everyone deserves access to these opportunities, and technological growth can help ensure that each of us is able to maximize our most limited resource: time.
We’re accelerating the world’s transition to sustainable abundance.
We must make one thing clear: this challenge will be extremely difficult to overcome. The elimination of scarcity will require tireless and exquisite execution. Some will perceive it as impossible. And plenty of others will laud every obstacle and setback we inevitably encounter along the way. But once we overcome this challenge, our critics will come to see that what they once thought was impossible is indeed possible. And that will be fine with us, because what matters most is that, together, we create a sustainable and truly abundant future for generations to come.
All worthwhile journeys are long. And they all begin with a first step.
Our first step was to make an exciting sports car—Roadster. Then we leveraged those profits to fund the development and production of more affordable, yet still exciting products—Model S and Model X. Then we repeated the process, bringing us to Model 3 and Model Y and onward.
This process required us to take many steps, some of them small and others large. But ultimately each win led to another win, and even with our failures, we were able to keep building momentum. Our momentum allowed us to build out a fully integrated ecosystem of sustainable products, from transport to energy generation, battery storage and robotics.
Today we are on the cusp of a revolutionary period primed for unprecedented growth. And this time it will not be a single step but a leap forward for Tesla and humanity as a whole. The tools we are going to develop will help us build the kind of world that we’ve always dreamed of—a world of sustainable abundance—by redefining the fundamental building blocks of labor, mobility and energy at scale and for all.
Electrek’s Take
Tesla is lost as a company. This is a bunch of utopic nonsense, complete with AI “abundance” buzzwords that Grok could have easily written.
Elon’s first two master plans were straightforward, featuring clear, actionable steps and a well-defined product roadmap.
In comparison, this is opium meant for Tesla shareholders to get their fix of potential “infinite growth” as an AI stock. It’s not real.
Everyone can see the value in an affordable humanoid robot capable of autonomously performing useful tasks. You don’t need to sell people on a weird utopic future around it. Start by demonstrating that you can create such a robot.
We have seen no evidence of that yet.
All of Tesla’s Optimus robot demonstrations have been supported by humans remotely controlling them. Most recently, Tesla had Optimus serving popcorn to guests at its diner in Los Angeles. It worked for a few hours on the first day, and the robot has reportedly been offline for a month since the restaurant’s launch.
I know I might sound like a hater, but I don’t care. Tesla is not a company that is about to deliver a future of “sustainable abundance”.
Tesla is a company that did the impossible and significantly accelerated the world’s transition to electric transportation. Then, its CEO went nuts. Sales started to go down, earnings began to drop, and to maintain a nonsensical stock price, the CEO decided to ride the AI bubble. That’s about it.
