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Early tech adopters are investing in a new toy: solar-powered electric yachts.

Across the globe superyachts are already a must-have for today’s rich and famous. There are some 5,555 of them navigating the world’s oceans and seas, according to SuperYacht Times’ State of Yachting Report.

New buyers are overwhelmingly American, with the report finding that 30% come from North America.

While glamorous, the boating industry takes a huge toll on the environment, releasing carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides and sulfur oxides into our air and waterways. 

To mitigate the environmental impact, some vessels have started adopting electric power sources. In Sweden, ForSea Ferries converted two 364-foot ferries from diesel engines to battery-powered versions. However, each ferry has 640 batteries that weigh nearly 200 pounds each, significantly increasing the weight of the vessels. 

In contrast, some companies have implemented solar-powered systems, which could potentially reduce that excessive weight. The market for solar-powered boats is projected by Allied Market Research to grow 14% by 2031 to $2.4 billion. 

Mike Horn, a professional explorer and adventurer who has traveled to the North Pole on a trimaran sailing vessel, is a proponent of this type of modern shipbuilding. 

“Electric yachts are the new generation of yachting,” he said. “I believe electric yachts and electric motors will be the main propulsion of pleasure yachts and even cargo vessels in the near future.”

Silent Yachts, based in Austria, and Poland’s Sunreef Yachts are two companies leading the development of this new technology.

Both companies use a similar technology, in which the solar panels harvest energy from the sun to recharge the battery. The lithium batteries also power onboard necessities like air conditioning and lighting. In the event that the sun isn’t strong enough, each vessel has a backup diesel generator that automatically recharges the battery.

“When we started building these yachts, many other boat builders told us there is no need for such a yacht,” said Silent Yachts CEO and co-founder Michael Köhler. “Everybody knows that it’s not a niche anymore. It is the new mass market.”

Silent Yachts builds yachts from the ground up and often refers to itself as the “Tesla of the seas.” Köhler, alongside his wife Heiki, founded the company in 2009. Since then, it’s delivered nearly 20 fully electric yachts and currently has over 30 in production in its shipyards in Italy and Turkey. 

The company says it has an order book of 160 million euros ($168 million), with prices ranging from 3.2 million euros for its 60-foot yacht to 30 million euros for the fully equipped version of its 120-foot vessel.

“We have the next generation of solar panels coming to the market, the next generation of electric batteries coming to the market, and the next generation of electric motors,” said Stephan Kress, chief innovation officer at Silent Yachts. “The advantage, which is already there, of electric yachting will become bigger and bigger.” 

Sunreef has been building yachts for over 20 years and its clients include celebrities like tennis star Rafael Nadal and Formula One driver Fernando Alonso. The company incorporates integrated solar panels into its yachts, which it calls a “unique” feature. 

“The goal of the solar panel was to be able to integrate them into the whole structure of the boat,” said Nicola Lapp, Sunreef co-founder and chief technology officer. “The solar panel on our boat can be located anywhere, even on curved surfaces on the hull side.”

Sunreef has two shipyards in Gdansk, Poland, and a third in the Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah, where it says it has around 60 yachts in production. It does the majority of its production in-house, including making its own solar panels.

“The price range really depends on the customization of the yacht,” said Lapp. “The smallest boat is around 1.5 million euros and on the upper range there really is no limit. The most expensive boat that we have sold is around 60 million euros.”

To date, the company says it has built over 300 yachts, with 30 being fully electric, and half of current production is either electric or a hybrid eco model. 

An important feature of the new technology, according to both Silent Yachts and Sunreef, is the relative simplicity of its day-to-day maintenance.  

“They don’t have any moving parts,” said Kress. “The electric motors, they are maintenance free. The only things that you would need to maintain on the boat are heat exchangers and the backup generator, which is very limited.”

Nevertheless, the technology does pose challenges for companies looking to adopt it for large commercial vessels like cargo or cruise ships.

“We think there is a sweet spot for solar electric boats between 50 and 120 feet,” said Kress. “Once you make the boats a lot bigger, the advantage of solar diminishes because you have a limited amount of power.”

Horn, the explorer, added that electric yachts “do have their place” in the market.

“But that alternative energy sources, like hydrogen, would be able to allow our vessel to go further,” he said.

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Electronic Arts stock closes up 15% on report company near $50 billion deal to go private

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Electronic Arts stock closes up 15% on report company near  billion deal to go private

Dado Ruvic | Reuters

Shares of Electronic Arts closed up 15% on Friday following a report in the Wall Street Journal that the video game company is nearing a roughly $50 billion deal to go private.

Investors including Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and Silver Lake could announce the deal as soon as next week, the report said. PIF has been pouring billions of dollars into gaming, purchasing the makers of Pokemon Go and the parent company behind Monopoly Go, for example.

Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners is another participating investor, according to a source familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private.

The deal would be the largest leveraged buyout in Wall Street history, surpassing the agreement to take TXU Energy private for about $45 billion in 2007. A leveraged buyout (LBO) is when debt is predominately used for an acquisition, a tactic traditionally used by private equity firms or activists.

EA makes popular video games including The Sims, Madden NFL, the soccer game FC, formerly known as FIFA. With Friday’s gains, the stock is up about 32% for the year.

EA did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

WATCH: CNBC’s interview with EA CEO Andrew Wilson

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Ex-Meta global affairs chief says tech should stay out of politics

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Ex-Meta global affairs chief says tech should stay out of politics

'How to save the internet': Sir Nick Clegg on the intersection of politics and tech

Former Meta global affairs chief Nick Clegg said Friday that tech companies should keep a distance from politics and people should feel “uneasy” about those firms intervening in the public space.

“I generally don’t think that politics and tech innovation mixes very well,” Clegg told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “I think it’s quite good when they kind of keep each other at a certain, respectful distance.”

President Donald Trump‘s deal with China this week to keep TikTok alive in the U.S. includes heavy doses of both elements, and the balance between the technology and political interests will be closely watched.

Clegg said two details should be especially looked at with TikTok: The safety of American data and the ownership of the algorithm, which he said would be “quite difficult” to share.

Clegg, who stepped down from his role at Meta earlier this year, questioned if U.S. data would be “kept safe here and not subject to surveillance,” but was also critical of other government efforts to silo data.

Clegg noted a recent legislative effort by India to impose “hard data localization” that would keep all data about citizens in India.

Read more CNBC tech news

“The moment countries start doing that, the dominoes will start to fall,” he said. “If everybody says, ‘No, we want our slice of the … data cake.’ Then, of course, the open data flows that drives the internet will start eroding.”

Trump’s executive order for the new TikTok structure establishes a joint-venture company to oversee TikTok’s U.S. data and algorithm, with Oracle controlling cloud services and running the app’s security operations, CNBC’s David Faber reported.

Neither China nor TikTok parent company ByteDance has commented on Trump’s Thursday executive order.

Clegg said the biggest risk to the internet is possibly the relationship between the U.S. and China, noting the potential of any fallout to push other countries into different policies.

He said the image of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi standing next to Chinese President Xi Jinping during a recent visit was “striking.”

“If India starts emulating China and starts trying to sort of cut off India, much like China has done from the rest of the internet. … I think that would be terrible for the kind of global open principles that the internet was based on,” Clegg said.

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Chinese driverless tech startup Momenta is raising funds at a roughly $6 billion valuation

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Chinese driverless tech startup Momenta is raising funds at a roughly  billion valuation

A car equipped with Momenta technology on display at the IAA Mobility show in Munich, Germany in September 2025.

Arjun Kharpal | CNBC

Momenta, a Chinese driverless technology startup, is raising a fresh round of funding that could value the company at around $6 billion, two people familiar with the matter told CNBC.

The valuation could change as the funding progresses, one of the people, who wished to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to discuss the details publicly, said.

Bloomberg first reported the deal with a valuation above $5 billion.

Momenta declined to comment when contacted by CNBC.

The Beijing-headquartered company develops software and algorithms that can be used by automakers to give their vehicles some automated driving features. These company claims that its Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) allows a car to carry out some functions autonomously such as changing lanes.

This week Momenta and Mercedes-Benz struck a deal to bring the Chinese firm’s technology to the German auto giant’s all-new electric CLA in China. The technology will power Mercedes-Benz’s driver assistance system across highways, urban streets, and parking, the two companies said in a joint press release on Thursday.

Momenta’s technology will eventually be equipped on 40 models developed by Mercedes-Benz, a person familiar with the matter said.

BMW signed a similar deal in June to equip its Neue Klasse electric vehicles in China with Momenta technology.

Momenta’s list of investors include Tencent, Temasek, SAIC Motor, Toyota and Mercedes-Benz.

The company is participating in a competitive market that includes players like Nvidia and Horizon Robotics in China. There are a number of other players in the autonomous driving software space including WeRide and Pony.ai.

Signing with global automakers is a big win for Momenta which is also gearing up for an initial public offering. Reuters reported on Friday that the company is considering shifting its listing to Hong Kong from New York.

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