No plans for big horsepower electric outboard engines: Mercury
Technology will need to catch up before Mercury rolls out high-horsepower electric outboard motorsMercury’s Avator range of electric outboard engines will stick with propelling smaller craft until the technology used to power them catches up, one of the chief architects of the company’s petrol-powered engine range says.
Robin Senger, Mercury’s US-based outboard product manager for engines including the 600hp V12 Verado and the newly released 350hp and 400hp V10 Verado, told boatsales.com.au the company’s “beer dream” for Avator, Mercury’s name for its standalone line of battery-powered outboards, was to build a version producing around 50hp to 60hp.
After that, though, the technology wasn’t yet far enough advanced to produce the big numbers needed for Mercury to even think about replacing its line of petrol-powered performance engines.
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“We're going to probably finish the one horse[power Avator electric outboard motor] and the three and the five,” Senger said in an interview after the launch of Mercury’s 300hp and 350hp V10 Verado outboard engines in the US.
“They'll probably be like a 10 horse. And the beer dream is, we know on paper we have the capability to build on a 50hp or 60hp electric, but that will be it because after that the battery size and the voltage you're playing with – it's like 800 volts in the water.
“Who wants to go out on the goddamn water with an engine with that much voltage going through it? I don’t know.”
Cost challenges
Senger said another challenge facing the electric outboard technology was the cost factor, with an electric motor likely to force owners to dig deeper into their wallets for a higher up-front purchase price compared with a conventional engine.
“It [electric engine technology] is actually pretty safe, pretty bulletproof,” Senger said. “But if you can buy a gas engine for $1200, why are you going to pay $2800 for the same engine in electric?
“That’s what I can’t get. But maybe there is a person out there who does.”
High-performance electric cars such as the Porsche Taycan use 800-volt systems that improve performance by ensuring the electric motor can get enough power to run at continuously high speeds.
European high-performance electric outboard engine specialist Evoy is close to releasing a 300hp version on the water, with plans to introduce an even higher-powered 400hp model as early as next year.
No details are available on how many volts these systems use, although Evoy’s 150hp version uses 450 volts.
Mercury plans to release three new electric outboard motors this year, with future plans to increase the range available to five.
It used this month’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to launch its first-ever production model, the Avator 7.5e, which produces the equivalent of 3.3hp – roughly the same output as Mercury’s 85cc single-cylinder petrol-powered outboard engine.
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