Swedish boat company Candela is not only taking electric mobility to the seas but is also breaking world records along the way. The Candela C-8 set a new world record last week, by covering 420 nautical miles, or 483 miles in 24 hours over the in-land waterways around Stockholm.
The boat set sail from the Frihamnen port in the capital city on an overcast day, elevating above the water thanks to its deployable hydrofoils – wing-like structures under the boat that boost performance and efficiency – and dual counter-rotating propellers. The C-8 is Polestar powered, using the same 69 kilowatt-hour battery pack from the Polestar 2 electric fastback.
Thanks to the Polestar battery, Candela claims the C-8 is the longest-range electric boat on the market by a wide margin, and probably among the more expensive ones with an eye-popping starting price of $395,000 before taxes and fees in the Americas. There’s also a C-8 Polestar edition that starts at a whopping $450,000.
The Swedish brand claims that its boat has a range of 66 miles on a single charge and a cruising speed of 23 miles per hour. For the record run, the sailers cycled through 45-minute runs at a top speed of 31 mph between charges, for 24 hours. In a separate video, the brand explained that the efficiency is one kilowatt-hour per nautical mile at 23 mph.
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For the world record, the C-8 used DC fast charging thanks to Northvolt’s mobile Voltpack battery and Plug charger.
Total electricity cost was $127, whereas a conventional fossil fuel-powered boat would have cost $1,483, according to the brand. A regular boat would have emitted around 3,935 pounds of carbon dioxide over 483 miles. The C8 emitted 99 percent less carbon dioxide – just 38.3 pounds, according to the standard Swedish electricity mix.
The previous record holder was a 740 horsepower electric vessel built by Canadian Marine electrification company Voltari Electric, which traveled 91 miles on a single change from Florida to the Bahamas.