Hungarian company Narke claims it's building the world's first electric personal watercraft (PWC) designed for proper series production. The Electrojet is a 60-hp (45-kW), carbon-bodied electric sit-down jet ski capable of doing 35 mph (55 km/h) in near silence.
We've written before about Free Form Factory's electric stand-up PWC, but little has come of this design since the company was acquired by Nikola Powersports. So until those guys get something to market, we're happy to let Narke's claim stand.
The Electrojet is a simple enough idea: a jet ski, but electric. It uses an in-house 45-kW electric motor design and a lithium-ion battery pack of indeterminate size, which the company claims is good for up to 90 minutes of "normal" riding.
Mind you, with such a modestly powered PWC (and modest is a very kind way to put it), normal use is going to involve a ton of full throttle. It'll be interesting to see just what kind of endurance riders really get out of these.
Charging takes about two hours from 0-80 percent, and there's talk of a removable battery you can swap out to keep the thing humming. The starkly angular shell is a carbon-reinforced composite design, targeting high strength and low weight, but no weight figures are available yet.
It seats two, maybe three if you're skinny, and it's got a nice digital dash display with what looks like some Bluetooth smartphone integration built in for navigation, weather and phone features.
Narke has a number of these things built in prototype form, and has been running some demo events at Lake Balaton, about half an hour southwest of Budapest. No firm dates or prices are available on the production model as yet.
The key problem we're seeing is as simple as this: it might not be fast enough, or go far enough, for the average PWC buyer. Narke claims it's "for special people who get attention not because they are louder than others … who know when to let off the gas and when to throttle back gently." Stereotypically, these descriptions would apply to approximately zero jet ski buyers.
Still, we remain convinced that electric propulsion will revolutionize this segment as totally as wheeled transport and aviation in the long run, and the idea of silent, emissions-free PWCs is music to our ears … as long as they stay well clear of swimmers.
Check out the promo video below.
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