Concept

Electric boat

An electric boat is a powered watercraft driven by electric motors, which are powered by either on-board battery packs, solar panels or generators. While a significant majority of water vessels are powered by diesel engines, with sail power and gasoline engines also popular, boats powered by electricity have been used for over 120 years. Electric boats were very popular from the 1880s until the 1920s, when the internal combustion engine became dominant. Since the energy crises of the 1970s, interest in this quiet and potentially renewable marine energy source has been increasing steadily, especially as more efficient solar cells have become available, for the first time making possible motorboats with a theoretically infinite cruise range like sailboats. The first practical solar boat was probably constructed in 1975 in England. The first electric sailboat to complete a round-the-world tour (including a transit of the Panama Canal) using only green technologies is EcoSailingProject. An early electric boat was developed by the German inventor Moritz von Jacobi in 1839 in St Petersburg, Russia. It was a boat which carried 14 passengers at . It was successfully demonstrated to Emperor Nicholas I of Russia on the Neva River. It took more than 30 years of battery and motor development before the electric boat became a practical proposition. This method of propulsion enjoyed something of a golden age from about 1880 to 1920, when gasoline-powered outboard motors became the dominant method. Gustave Trouvé, a French electrical engineer, patented a small electric motor in 1880. He initially suggested that the motor could power a set of paddle wheels to propel boats on the water, and later argued for the use of a propeller. An Austrian émigré to Britain, Anthony Reckenzaun, was instrumental in the development of the first practical electric boats. While working as an engineer for the Electrical Power Storage Company, he undertook much original and pioneering work on various forms of electric traction.

About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.
Related courses (1)
PHYS-201(d): General physics: electromagnetism
The topics covered by the course are concepts of fluid mechanics, waves, and electromagnetism.
Related lectures (9)
Electric Work Calculation: Potential Function and Charges Assembly
Explains how to calculate work in an electric field using the potential function and its importance in crystal cohesion.
Solar Panels: Swiss Solar Boat
Covers the development of solar panels for the Swiss Solar Boat.
Design and Production of Swiss Solar Boat Cockpit
Explores the design and production of the cockpit for the Swiss Solar Boat.
Show more
Related publications (35)
Related people (1)
Related concepts (15)
Electric vehicle
An electric vehicle (EV) is a vehicle that uses one or more electric motors for propulsion. It can be powered by a collector system, with electricity from extravehicular sources, or it can be powered autonomously by a battery (sometimes charged by solar panels, or by converting fuel to electricity using fuel cells or a generator). EVs include, but are not limited to, road and rail vehicles, surface and underwater vessels, electric aircraft, and electric spacecraft.
Sustainable energy
Energy is sustainable if it "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Most definitions of sustainable energy include considerations of environmental aspects such as greenhouse gas emissions and social and economic aspects such as energy poverty. Renewable energy sources such as wind, hydroelectric power, solar, and geothermal energy are generally far more sustainable than fossil fuel sources.
Solar vehicle
A solar vehicle or solar electric vehicle is an electric vehicle powered completely or significantly by direct solar energy. Usually, photovoltaic (PV) cells contained in solar panels convert the sun's energy directly into electric energy. The term "solar vehicle" usually implies that solar energy is used to power all or part of a vehicle's propulsion. Solar power may also be used to provide power for communications or controls or other auxiliary functions.
Show more

Graph Chatbot

Chat with Graph Search

Ask any question about EPFL courses, lectures, exercises, research, news, etc. or try the example questions below.

DISCLAIMER: The Graph Chatbot is not programmed to provide explicit or categorical answers to your questions. Rather, it transforms your questions into API requests that are distributed across the various IT services officially administered by EPFL. Its purpose is solely to collect and recommend relevant references to content that you can explore to help you answer your questions.