Flying electric boat company Candela soars closer to its 30-passenger vessel
Swedish electric boat maker Candela is flying high recently, and not just on its hydrofoils. The company has just announced a new $20M investment that will accelerate the rollout of its upcoming 30-passenger electric ferry, the Candela P-12 Shuttle.
Candela has spent years developing and producing electric hydrofoil boats that have so far been used primarily for recreational boating.
Now the company’s P-12 electric ferry is set to bring the same benefits of Candela’s existing designs to the world of commercial boating.
Hydrofoil boats are more efficient than traditional boats because they are designed to reduce drag and increase speed by lifting the hull out of the water. The hydrofoil, which is a wing-like structure mounted on struts below the hull, creates lift when it moves through the water, similar to how an airplane wing creates lift in the air. This reduces the amount of surface area in contact with the water, which in turn reduces drag and improves efficiency.
Because the boat is lifted out of the water, it also experiences less resistance from waves, resulting in a smoother ride and less energy consumption. That means that Candela’s boats are not only much more efficient than conventional combustion engine boats with traditional V-hulls, but they are also several times more efficient than most other electric boats on the market today.
For a commercial operator, that efficiency and comfort make a huge difference in operations. And now that Candela has landed a new round of investment totaling SEK 210 million ($20M), the P-12 is even closer to production.
The investment round was co-led by EQT Ventures and investor duo Joel Eklund (Fosielund Holding AB) and Svante Nilo Bengtsson (Marknadspotential AB), with participation from Ocean Zero LLC, among others.
Candela tells us that the funding will be used to bring Candela’s game-changing, foiling 30-passenger ferry Candela P-12 Shuttle to mass production in the company’s new Stockholm factory.
As CEO and founder Gustav Hasselskog explained, the P-12 will be more than just quicker and cheaper than land transportation; it will also be immediately profitable for the transportation companies that operate it.
This new investment will unlock the potential of underutilized waterways for climate-friendly, high-speed commuting. The P-12 Shuttle will in many cases be faster and cheaper than land transport like bus lines, and it will be profitable for operators from day one.
The cost-effective alternative form of transportation uses its high efficiency to reduce operating costs and bring down the high initial upfront cost of many electric boats that would normally require much larger batteries.
Because the P-12 will use 80% less energy than traditional vessels, its economical battery will still provide a record range of 60 nautical miles on a single charge when cruising at a speed of 27 knots.
The Candela P-12 is expected to launch this summer, when the company says it will become the fastest and longest-range electric passenger vessel in the world.
The advantages of the boat’s electric hydrofoil design primarily benefit its occupants and operators, though the shift away from combustion engine vessels is also a major benefit to the climate. A recent life cycle analysis by Stockholm’s Royal Institute of Technology concluded that a P-12 ferry will emit 97.5% less carbon dioxide over its lifetime compared to a diesel vessel of the same size, including its emissions from production, operations over 30 years and recycling.
I’ve had the opportunity to test out two of Candela’s current models, the C-7 and C-8 electric hydrofoil boats.
Both vessels left me quite impressed (and also made me look good with their ultra easy-to-use controls), though the C-8 was my clear favorite. The larger vessel is even smoother, quieter, and more capable, flying higher above the surface to clear choppier waters. I was able to cut across the wakes of everything from speed boats to cruise ships with only the slightest movement of the boat. A V-hull boat would have been crashing up and down when crossing the same wakes.
In fact, you can check it out in the video of my most recent testing experience below. It’s a doozy to see the two different styles of boats sailing side by side.
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Yadea, which has claimed the title of the world’s largest electric vehicle maker for seven years running, has just announced a new electric motorbike powered by the company’s innovative HuaYu sodium-ion battery technology.
Yadea has long dominated the electric two-wheeler and three-wheeler market globally, but has generally relied on both lithium-ion and lead acid batteries to power its vehicles in different markets.
The newly unveiled electric scooter uses Yadea’s recently introduced sodium battery technology, offering what the company says is outstanding performance in range, charging speed, and safety. Using the HuaYu Sodium Superfast Charging Ecosystem presented by Yadea, the battery can reach 80% charge in just 15 minutes, providing greater convenience for riders.
Yadea’s sodium battery has successfully passed more than 20 safety tests, many focusing on its resistance to fire and explosions under extreme conditions like punctures and compression.
Yadea’s new sodium battery offers an energy density of 145 Wh/kg and a lifespan of up to 1,500 cycles at room temperature, with the company rating it for a five-year useful lifespan. It also includes a three-year warranty for added assurance.
With excellent low-temperature capabilities, the battery retains over 92% of its discharge capacity at -20°C, making it well-suited for colder climates.
Sodium batteries present major advantages
Most electric vehicles used in the West, especially electric two-wheelers, rely on lithium-ion batteries for their high energy density. But sodium-ion batteries offer many benefits over traditional lithium-ion batteries.
Sodium is an abundant element on the planet and is easily accessible, unlike lithium, which is concentrated in specific regions and often expensive to extract. This abundance can make sodium-ion batteries cheaper to produce, reducing costs for EV manufacturers and potentially making electric vehicles more affordable.
Lithium mining also has environmental challenges, such as water depletion and habitat destruction. Sodium, on the other hand, can be sourced from seawater or common salts, offering a more sustainable and environmentally friendly option.
Sodium-ion batteries are less prone to overheating and thermal runaway compared to lithium-ion batteries. This makes them inherently safer for electric vehicles, reducing the risk of fires and improving consumer confidence in EV technology.
Sodium-ion batteries perform better than lithium-ion in cold climates. Lithium-ion batteries struggle with capacity retention in freezing conditions, but sodium batteries maintain efficiency, making them ideal for EVs in colder regions.
Sodium batteries still have challenges to overcome
While sodium-ion batteries are promising, they currently have a lower energy density than lithium-ion batteries, meaning they store less energy per unit of weight.
For EVs, this translates to shorter driving ranges for the same-sized battery. That’s especially important in electric two-wheelers like motorbikes and electric bicycles, which don’t have much extra space for storing bulky batteries.
However, advancements in cathode materials and battery architecture are quickly closing this gap, which Yadea has demonstrated. These sodium-ion batteries still can’t match the energy density of lithium-ion batteries, but as they continue to improve their energy density, the technology’s other major advantages provide encouraging signs for larger adoption in the industry.
Yadea’s status as a major electric motorbike maker also means that its adoption of sodium-ion battery technology could help lead the entire industry towards this battery chemistry, bringing safety and performance benefits along with it.
Last year I had the unique opportunity to visit one of Yadea’s global manufacturing sites.
To see inside the company’s massive and highly-automated manufacturing processes, check out the video below!
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At CES2025, the impressively built-out John Deere exhibit was all about automation. Autonomous job sites, autonomous farms … but it was this new, battery electric, autonomous lawn mowing robot that stole the show.
The self-driving Deere mower robot was positively dwarfed by the giant farm machinery surrounding it, but it continues to prove that humans will pack bond with anything as more than one burly-looking and grizzled man asked what its name was. (It’s Howard. I’ll fight you.)
For his part, Howard packs a 21.4 kWh battery pack that runs a suite of electric motors that includes a drive motor and three cutting blade motors spread across a 60 inch cutting deck – but it’s not the electric motors that make John Deere’s little robot mower cool, it’s the way it works.
See, instead of using “just” GPS data or “just” repeating a pre-recorded run, Howard can do something in between. The way it was explained to me, you would ride the stand-up mower around the perimeter of the area you wanted to mow, select a pattern, then hop off, fold up the platform, and let it loose. Howard mows just the way you would, leaving you to focus on edging, planting, or (let’s face it) schmoozing with the clients.
It’s exactly the sort of help landscapers are looking for.
But that should come as no surprise, of course. John Deere, perhaps more than most companies, knows its customer. “We’ve been in the turf business for 60 years — it’s a core part of Deere,” says Jahmy Hindman, chief technology officer at John Deere, explaining things beautifully. “The work that’s being done in this industry is incredibly labor intensive … they’re not just doing the mowing work. They’re doing the tree trimming, maintaining flowerbeds and all these other jobs. The mowing is table stakes, though, for them to get the business. It’s the thing they have to do in order to get the higher value work.”
Tim Lewis, lead engineer with the commercial automatous mower, told Lawn & Landscape that the industry in general has a high turnover rate as well, making it difficult to hang to people who know where one job ends and another begins. “There’s a lot of nuances it takes to do these jobs effectively,” he explains, “so “Autonomy can help with that.”
The John Deere autonomous commercial mower (there’s no snazzy alphanumeric, yet) leverages the same camera technology as other Deere autonomous machines, but on a smaller scale (since the machine has a smaller footprint). With two cameras each on the front, left, right, and rear sides of the little guy, he has a 360-degree view of the world and enough AI to lay down a pattern, avoid an obstacle, and shut off if it thinks it’s about to mow down something (read: someone) it shouldn’t.
John Deere will have Howard on display through tomorrow at CES in the LVCC’s West Hall. If you’re in town, be sure to go say hi.
John Deere CES2025
SUOURCE | IMAGES: John Deere; Electrek.
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