New electric motor kit for kayaks silently adds over 80 miles of range
Newport Vessels is showing off its latest electric motor kit, this time designed to turn kayaks into electric boats. The easy-to-use NK300 motor is design for fishermen, outdoors enthusiasts and anyone who wants to go further on their kayaks than their arms will take them.
Newport is known for their electric trolling motors, but the new NK300 electric motor is a specialized version designed specifically to mount on kayaks.
It runs on a 36V system, allowing the tiny motor to offer 1,300 watts of electrical power. The company tells us that it is equivalent in performance to a 3 horsepower gasoline outboard.
It’s apparently enough to get a kayak up to 6.5 mph (10.5 km/h) on the water, though going that fast significantly reduces the range of the setup.
When paired with the company’s 36V and 30Ah lithium iron phosphate battery, the entire kit is said to offer a maximum range of 66 miles (106 km) in low power trolling mode. A more modest range of 17.7 miles (28.5 km) is achievable at around 25% throttle. Going wide open on the throttle at max speed will drop the range to just 6.8 miles (10.9 km).
The company offers a 40Ah battery with 1,440 Wh of capacity that should increase those range figures by around 33%. That would put the maximum range at trolling speed closer to 88 miles (142 km). Of course that would be a day and a half of continuous use, essentially turning a kayak into a water camper.
For those that want to go fast without compromising range, adding a second battery is a simple way to double the motor’s run time.
The NK300 electric motor uses a remote throttle system so that the user doesn’t have to keep a hand on the tiller. That’s going to be a major plus for anglers that need both hands free to work their rod.
The forward and reverse throttle includes a digital screen to provide power and battery readouts, allowing operators to keep an eye on charge level. It also has a magnetic kill switch to prevent the kayak from sailing off into the sunset if the operator ever slips overboard.
Cable controls allow the prop to be remotely raised and lowered, and the kayak’s existing foot pedals for rudder controls can be adapted to the motor to allow for easy hands-free steering.
The NK300 kayak motor is priced at US $1,299 and is expected to begin shipping in March 2023. The 30Ah battery is already available for US $849, while the 40Ah battery costs US $949.
The Newport NK300 kayak motor follows on the heels of a similar electric outboard launched by the company, the Newport NT300.
The Newport NT300 has similar specs with a performance rating approximately equal to that of 3 horsepower combustion engine outboards.
A step-up from a traditional trolling motor, the NT300 uses a tiller handle with throttle control but is also compatible with the remote throttle option (with included magnetic kill switch) from the NK300 motor kit.
Low power electric outboard motors have become an increasingly competitive market recently after several interesting new launches.
Honda just showed off a new electric outboard prototype that uses its swappable electric scooter batteries for power.
Mercury recently revealed a new line of varying power electric outboards starting with the Avator 7.5e.
Along with the Newport NT300 and NK300, all of these motors fall in the roughly 3 hp-equivalent category, making them useful for jon boats, small skiffs, inflatable boats and kayaks.
Electrek’s Take
I’m loving all of these new lightweight electric boats and electric outboards. My dad and I use a DIY electric kayak that required significant modification to get a trolling motor to work with it. Something like this Newport NK300 kit would have been a much more elegant option.
All of these lightweight marine motors and sealed lithium batteries are making it easier than ever for casual boaters to get out on the water while enjoying the benefits of quiet and emissions-free electric drive. There’s a lot to love. Less noise. Less maintenance. Less breathing in exhaust fumes. Less scaring off the fish. Basically, less is more. And I love it.
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If you’ve ever wondered what happens when you combine a fruit cart, a cargo bike, and a Piaggio Ape all in one vehicle, now you’ve got your answer. I submit, for your approval, this week’s feature for the Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week column – and it’s a beautiful doozie.
Feast your eyes on this salad slinging, coleslaw cruising, tuber taxiing produce chariot!
I think this electric vegetable trike might finally scratch the itch long felt by many of my readers. It seems every time I cover an electric trike, even the really cool ones, I always get commenters poo-poo-ing it for having two wheels in the rear instead of two wheels in the front. Well, here you go, folks!
Designed with two front wheels for maximum stability, this trike keeps your cucumbers in check through every corner. Because trust me, you don’t want to hit a pothole and suddenly be juggling peaches like you’re in Cirque du Soleil: Farmers Market Edition.
To avoid the extra cost of designing a linked steering system for a pair of front wheels, the engineers who brought this salad shuttle to life simply side-stepped that complexity altogether by steering the entire fixed front end. I’ve got articulating electric tractors that steer like this, and so if it works for a several-ton work machine, it should work for a couple hundred pounds of cargo bike.
Featuring a giant cargo bed up front with four cascading fruit baskets set up for roadside sales, this cargo bike is something of a blank slate. Sure, you could monetize grandma’s vegetable garden, or you could fill it with your own ideas and concoctions. Our exceedingly talented graphics wizard sees it as the perfect coffee and pastry e-bike for my new startup, The Handlebarista, and I’m not one to argue. Basically, the sky is the limit with a blank slate bike like this!
Sure, the quality doesn’t quite match something like a fancy Tern cargo bike. The rim brakes aren’t exactly confidence-inspiring, but at least there are three of them. And if they should all give out, or just not quite slow you down enough to avoid that quickly approaching brick wall, then at least you’ve got a couple hundred pounds of tomatoes as a tasty crumple zone.
The electrical system does seem a bit underpowered. With a 36V battery and a 250W motor, I don’t know if one-third of a horsepower is enough to haul a full load to the local farmer’s market. But I guess if the weight is a bit much for the little motor, you could always do some snacking along the way. On the other hand, all the pictures seem to show a non-electric version. So if this cart is presumably mobile on pedal power alone, then that extra motor assist, however small, is going to feel like a very welcome guest.
The $950 price is presumably for the electric version, since that’s what’s in the title of the listing, though I wouldn’t get too excited just yet. I’ve bought a LOT of stuff on Alibaba, including many electric vehicles, and the too-good-to-be-true price is always exactly that. In my experience, you can multiply the Alibaba price by 3-4x to get the actual landed price for things like these. Even so, $3,000-$4,000 wouldn’t be a terrible price, considering a lot of electric trikes stateside already cost that much and don’t even come with a quad-set of vegetable baskets on board!
I should also put my normal caveat in here about not actually buying one of these. Please, please don’t try to buy one of these awesome cargo e-trikes. This is a silly, tongue-in-cheek weekend column where I scour the ever-entertaining underbelly of China’s massive e-commerce site Alibaba in search of fun, quirky, and just plain awesomely weird electric vehicles. While I’ve successfully bought several fun things on the platform, I’ve also gotten scammed more than once, so this is not for the timid or the tight-budgeted among us.
That isn’t to say that some of my more stubborn readers haven’t followed in my footsteps before, ignoring my advice and setting out on their own wild journey. But please don’t be the one who risks it all and gets nothing in return. Don’t say I didn’t warn you; this is the warning.
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Environment
Podcast: Trump/GOP go after EV/solar, Tesla, Ford, GM EV sales, Electrek Formula Sun, and more
In the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy. In this week’s episode, we discuss Trump’s Big Beautiful bill becoming law and going after EVs and solar, Tesla, Ford, and GM EV sales, Electrek Formula Sun, and more
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The show is live every Friday at 4 p.m. ET on Electrek’s YouTube channel.
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Here are a few of the articles that we will discuss during the podcast:
- Electrek FSGP 2025: New teams, new cars, same solar spirit
- Congress votes to send 2 million US jobs to China, increase deficit, energy costs
- Tesla (TSLA) confirms 384,000 deliveries in Q2 2025, right on expectations
- Tesla prototype sparks speculation: a Model Y, maybe slightly smaller
- Tesla launches Oasis Supercharger with solar farm and off-grid batteries
- Tesla unveils its LFP battery factory, claims it’s almost ready
- Here’s why Ford’s electric vehicle sales crashed by nearly a third in Q2
- The Chevy Equinox EV is GM’s breakout star, but that’s not the only surprise
- Xpeng launches G7, a new Tesla Model Y competitor for just $27,000
Here’s the live stream for today’s episode starting at 4:00 p.m. ET (or the video after 5 p.m. ET:
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