Electric boat

This article is about electrically powered boats in general. For the company called "Electric Boat", see General Dynamics Electric Boat.

An electric boat is a powered watercraft driven by electric motors that are powered by 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 electric boats 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 technology is EcoSailingProject.

One of the main benefits of shifting to electric boats apart from environmental benefit is the low cost of operation. The spread between diesel and electric depends on fuel cost and grid cost in a region.

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