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Young Montrealer Taiga Motors has spent the last few years tackling the thorny task of electrifying snowmobiles, but is now interested in making cleaner, quieter watercraft. The company unveiled a new and expensive new watercraft called Orca at an event in Toronto Tuesday night, which can last up to two hours with a full charge.
The Orca has a top speed of 100 km / h and a power of 134 kW (about 180 horses), which seems to be a pleasure. The 23 kWh battery can be charged to standard or level 2 (240 V) outlets, or faster with a DC fast charger (0 to 80% in 20 minutes), provided owners can find enough close to the water (or with enough space to accommodate a truck and a trailer).
Taiga Motors said it was very difficult to rebuild a battery that could not only withstand a driving speed of up to 65 miles per hour in open water, but would not lose its total capacity when it would be tidy for the winter. In addition, homeowners will not have to endure the tedious process of "winterizing" because there are fewer moving parts. All killer whales will be covered by a five-year warranty of 20,000 kilometers (approximately 12,427 miles).
The Orca has a waterproof digital display between the handlebars, allowing drivers to invest in what looks like a lot of technologies, such as GPS maps, LTE radios, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, the information provided by built-in water temperature sensors and camera edge streams and a sonar unit. And it would not be a modern mobility machine without a smartphone app for companion and the ability to accept live updates, two promises that, according to Taiga Motors, will accompany the Orca.
None of this is cheap, since Taiga Motors is aiming for a whopping $ 24,000 for the Orca when it goes into production in 2020. (For information, Kawasaki sells Jet Ski watercraft, included between approximately $ 10,000 and $ 18,000.) In the footsteps of young automotive companies such as Tesla and NIO, Taiga Motors will sell for $ 28,000 a more expensive "Founders' Edition," which includes "design elements exclusive unspecified and performing sets.
Part of this price comes from the fact that the body of the Orca is entirely made of carbon fiber, which Taiga Motors probably should have used to reduce its weight. Even with carbon fiber, the Orca weighs 580 pounds, of which nearly half (275 pounds) comes from the battery alone. Those who buy a killer whale can at least customize almost everything about their appearance, from the colors of the boat to the finish, through the shade and texture of the deck mat.
Taiga Motors will probably not meet a significant audience for a $ 24,000 PWC. Even if it were, large-scale manufacturing can be a major waste of resources for a small business. So Taiga Motors says that it will only build 400 standard Orcs, and that the founders' edition will only produce 500 in total. The start-up announced that it is already planning new generation PWCs with a starting price of less than $ 14,000 and that it is developing indoor and outdoor electric motors.
Taiga Motors is not the only company in the field of electric watercraft, but most of the others have not left the design stage yet. (In fact, the number most prominent before the Orca announcement came earlier this year from the Nikola Motor Company's electric truck start-up, which only showed its concept after acquiring another start in this space.)
But if Taiga Motors sticks to this ambitious timeline, it will perhaps be one of the first to realize this idea – a fact that the startup seems very conscious of. "This is the first step in Taiga's mission to accelerate the adoption of electrical alternatives in the mass market," the company said in a press release. "The owners of a killer whale will proudly keep their place in history as they have led the transition to better water sports."
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