Avator 20e and 35e electric outboard motors: What we know

The two new motors join the already-released Avator 7.5e electric outboard launched in Australia earlier this year. However, the two newer motors are very different to the one already available to Australian buyers.

What are the differences, and what will that mean for prospective owners?

We take a deep dive into the Avator 20e and 35e to see what changes they will bring to how you will use your fully electric boat.

The Avator 7.5e is powerful enough to produce 750 watts – Avator’s naming gives a clue to how much performance these engines have. In real-world terms, and because the motor swings a larger prop than compared with a conventional petrol-engined outboard engine, performance is similar to a conventional 3.5hp outboard.

How do the new motors stack up? The Avator 20e will produce 2000W of power, or around 3.0hp, but with the larger propeller, its performance will be closer to a conventional 5hp outboard engine.

Likewise, the Avator 35e will produce around 5hp, but by the time it reaches the propeller, this steps up to the fossil-fuelled equivalent of around 9.9hp of four-stroke performance.

The bump in performance does come with penalties, though. The two main ones are you’re not going to be toting the bigger motors around like the highly transportable Avator 7.5e – instead, they are likely to remain fixed to the transom – and you’re going to have to use an external battery pack rather than a swappable internal battery.

Because they are more powerful and use a much larger battery, the Avator 20e and 35e electric outboard motors will cost more than the smaller Avator 7.5e.

What do we mean by this? The answer is in how you will fit your boat out to take the new Avator electric drive systems.

When you install an Avator 20e or 35e, you have the choice of using a single or multiple 2.3kWh portable batteries to power the boat.

If you’re using a single battery, it’s a simple matter of plugging the battery into the side of the motor.

However, if you’re using multiple batteries to extend the boat’s range, you’ll also need to install what Avator calls a ‘Power Centre’ controller that combines the batteries into a single cable leading to the outboard motor.

If you install a Power Centre and use multiple batteries, this will give you the option of packing light for an afternoon of estuary fishing or packing heavy for a weekend on the water.

This is one of the big benefits of these new Avator outboard motors. While the Avator 7.5e is exclusively tiller steer, the larger Avator 20e and 35e outboard motors are available with either tiller steer or forward control so you can rig it like a conventional boat with a steering wheel.

The forward control versions of the new motors will come with a conventional-looking binnacle-mount shift and throttle lever and a key start system – on tiller-steer versions you need to switch the motor off via a power button on the face of the motor.

For tiller-steer models, it’s a simple case of taking the fuel tank out of the boat, giving the space it sat in a good wash to remove any spilled fuel, and slipping in the battery pack. You strap it down just like you do the fuel tank.

For forward control versions of the engine, you’ll have to rig the boat with a new shift and throttle lever at the helm, as well as a dash-mounted touchscreen instrument panel.

The Avator electric motors use conventional transom mounts, so there will be no change to how you secure the motor to the boat.

What about swapping the battery? It will weigh around 21kg, a pretty hefty weight to lift in and out of a boat, but close to the weight of a full 25L tote tank that you’d be packing for an extended trip. Three of them will weigh more than 60kg – a significant weight for a tinnie, but manageable for a RIB.

Using multiple batteries may create a challenge because most boats are made to carry a single fuel tank and not multiple battery packs. Mercury has hinted it may need to work with boat-makers to create interiors that are more battery-friendly.

Mercury will supply the 2.3kWh batteries with a 230W wall charger. However, it will make a 520W charger available that will significantly reduce the time needed to recharge a battery.

What you’re seeing so far is only a small part of what will become a large family of Avator electric outboard motors, with Mercury already working on more powerful models to service ever-larger boats.

However, there will be an upper limit on the amount of horsepower these electric engines will produce, with battery energy densities not yet at the level that Mercury needs for its high-performance outboard engines to make the jump to electric.

Mercury hasn’t yet set what that upper horsepower limit is, although we’re guessing it’s likely to be around the 40hp to 60hp mark.

Model: Avator 35e
Power: 4467W (input)/3700W (prop)
Voltage: 48V
Weight: 21.3kg (excluding battery)
Battery: Remote LiON/2300Wh/21kg (up to three batteries)
Steering: Tiller/remote
Shaft lengths: 381mm (15-inch)/508mm (20-inch)/635mm (25-inch)
Propeller: 12.7x7P