Candela’s High-Tech, All-Electric, Next Generation Speedboat Increases High-Speed ​​Range With Polestar Battery Collaboration

I had a feeling Candela’s hydrofoiling, all-electric powerboat was going to be a game-changer when my first story about the Stockholm, Sweden-based tech company back in August 2021 led with this:

“You could say that the growing team of hypersmart engineers, software developers, yacht designers and boatbuilders at Candela have been designing and building an all-electric-powered boat that’s similar to what Elon Musk did with Tesla automobiles since Gustav Hasselskog founded the company in Stockholm, Sweden in 2014.

“But that wouldn’t exactly be right. In fact, what they’ve done—created an electric-powered, zero-emission speedboat that’s capable of traveling up to 50 nautical miles at 22-knots between charges—was much harder than what Elon Musk has done simply because boats have much more drag to overcome than cars.”

In fact, the car reference is spot on. Although, Candela has just announced a collaboration with a very different all-electric auto manufacturer—Polestar. And the result of their collaboration is Candela’s longest-range electric boat to date.

The Candela C-8 ‘powered by Polestar’ uses the same 69 kWh battery pack and DC charging technology as Polestar 2 cars. This gives the boat an expected range of up to 57 nautical miles (65 statuary miles) at a cruising speed of 22 Knots (25 MPH)—much further than what Candela was able to achieve back in 2021—on one charge!

In fact, range is two-to-three times higher than what non-foiling electric speedboats can achieve at high speed and compares favorably with use cases of traditional fossil fuel-powered boats.

The secret to the long range lies in Candela’s highly efficient proprietary technology. Flying above the waves on computer-guided underwater hydrofoils allows the C-8 to use 80% less energy than conventional boats at high speed. Meanwhile its highly efficient Candela C-POD motor is capable of producing 75 kW/100hp for takeoff. And then once the C-8 is up on its foils, it flies efficiently drawing only around 23 kW/30hp from its Polestar battery pack.

The Polestar collaboration also enables fast, DC charging which opens up new routes and future-proofs the boat.

“With access to fast DC chargers, which are now starting to pop up in marinas around the world, you can cover totally new routes with Candela C-8. You can go from Sweden to Finland in one day, or along the entire French Riviera in a few hours. For only a few euros/dollars’ worth of electricity”, says Gustav Hasselskog.

“Sharing know-how on batteries and vehicle engineering with Candela will help reach our shared goal of transitioning to a future where all forms of transport are sustainable,” says Thomas Ingenlath, CEO Polestar.

As a parent and a person who’s sincerely committed to helping preserve our planet for future generations to enjoy, I’m excited to report on the progress Candela and Polestar are making to help protect the health of our oceans by applying cutting edge tech to these very hard problems.

May I make another prediction?

I predict world-wide adoption of this waterborne technology is only a matter of time for one simple reason—the C-8 (and whatever Gustav and his merry band of wicked smart engineers come up with in the future)— are building some of the coolest boats in the world that also happen to be some of the greenest.

And that’s no easy feat! Stay tuned for more.