What's Your Problem? We’re Going to Need a Better Boat
23 snips
Dec 11, 2025 
Mitch Lee, co-founder and CEO of ARC Boats, dives into the challenges of building competitively priced electric boats. He reveals how water density complicates electrification and discusses the complexities of large marine battery packs. Insights into partnering with automotive suppliers for cost efficiency shed light on production hurdles. Mitch also emphasizes safety innovations in electric boats compared to gasoline, and highlights the exciting shift to hybrid tugs. His vision for expanding ARC's offerings includes electrifying ferries and various consumer boats.
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
Water Makes Electrification Intensely Demanding
- Boats need vastly larger batteries because water is ~1,000× denser than air, so energy demands skyrocket.
- Mitch Lee frames battery design as a techno-economic problem, not purely technical.
Leverage Automotive Scale For Battery Packs
- Source battery components from automotive suppliers to leverage scale and quality.
- Bring pack integration in-house when off-the-shelf options are cost-prohibitive.
Build The Boat Around The Battery
- A 226 kWh pack equals multiple electric sedans and creates weight, volume, and cost trade-offs.
- Design the boat around the battery to unlock performance and customer experience gains.