Ever since I helped my dad upgrade his fishing kayak to an electric motor, I’ve been looking for an electric boat of my own. After some serious internet searching, a deep breath and determination, I sent $1,000 to China for an electric boat I found on Alibaba. A few months later, this is what became clear.
I just bought a fun electric mini truck and have been searching Alibaba frequently for more weird little electric cars for my weekly column about weird electric cars from China since I made a big purchase that I don’t feel like explaining. A lot of time has passed since then. I gave it to my wife.
After finding a small boat manufacturer on Alibaba that looked good, I contacted the company and Frank, the owner, showed me all the models they make.
There were a few good options, but in the end I chose a nice little 14-foot electric boat for five people with a nice entrance.
The only problem is that shipping costs a fortune. I had to do LCL delivery (less than half the container load) because I did not plan to load 40-foot containers with these ships. I don’t even need one, let alone a dozen. LCL shipping means I share a container with someone else and we each pay for our share of the container. It’s just that shipping last year was still ridiculously expensive and my share would have been over $3,000.
Frank advised me to wait a little and over the next few months we saw prices slowly come down. When the price reached $2,200, I decided to pull the trigger. It still costs twice as much as a boat, but a five-passenger electric boat can easily cost $10,000 in the US, so I’m still ahead.
I took a deep breath, made a bank transfer to Frank and waited a few weeks for my boat to be completed. Frank and I had a video call so he could show me the boat, and then he packed it up and loaded it onto a larger ship bound for the Port of Miami.
Along the way, I asked the customs broker to process all my import documents. I’ll tell you how this process works, but to be honest, I don’t fully understand the specifics. This is why customs brokers exist. They do all the legal things to ensure that international trade runs smoothly.
I was hit with the Trump tariffs and some other accusations that the cost of the ship had increased by about 30% even before it arrived at the Port of Miami. In addition, there is an arrival fee of around $500 (essentially a ransom you must pay when your ship arrives), plus a warehouse fee for releasing the ship from the warehouse where the general container is unloaded.
And one more small hitch before I actually pull my new electric boat out of storage: someone in China messed up one of the many tracking numbers on their side of the import paperwork, meaning something doesn’t match. It’s quite complicated (house bill of lading, master bill of lading, AMS number, internal IT number, ISF and other acronyms I can’t even remember), but my customs broker told me in one letter exactly what to tell the shipping company. proposal Then they resolved the issue with the Chinese shipper. After a few more stressful days, something clicked again and my boat cleared.
Again, this is very complex and I don’t pretend to understand all the intricacies, so this is usually done by professionals. You can save some money by doing it yourself, but it’s best to do your homework first and make sure all your i’s are crossed and all your t’s are crossed.
I then had to hire a guy to move the boxes around Florida, which cost hundreds of dollars. With customs fees, my $1,000 boat was already worth about $5,000. Considering American made electric boats are closer to this size class and cost between $40,000 and $60,000, I think I’m still in pretty good shape. Sure, it’s not as fancy as the $300,000 electric boats I’ve ridden, but it’s not quite in the same league.
Sure, you can buy a crude electric pontoon boat with an empty hull (plus its own seats and everything) for around $10,000 in the US, but this little Chinese five-passenger electric boat is more or less complete.
I sent the boat to my parents’ ranch with the intention of testing it on their 1-acre pond to make sure it was seaworthy before eventually putting it in the local river.
I even found a surprise inside: Frank gave away 10 free life jackets. Five of these are actually very good and can easily sell for $50 in the US. The other five are compliant life jackets, and you can probably get all five for just $50.
There was probably a $200-$300 piece of solid half inch plywood screwed to the cage, all of which I was able to salvage and will definitely come in handy in the future. The cage itself is welded from 2-inch square galvanized steel pipe. Everything was done amazingly. There is no way to build this box in the US for less than $1000, let alone the entire electric boat it carries.
It was not easy to get the boat out of the crate, especially since at the factory it was loaded from above using a gantry crane. The boat weighs 400–500 lbs (180–230 kg), so it’s a one-ski situation.
Once the boat was out of the box, I finally had the opportunity to take control of the hull. It turns out that a 14-foot boat is more like a 13-foot-1 boat. It must have been quite a chilly ride. Oh okay, I’ll just do it.
I then had to lift the boat to trailer height, which was another case of lifting one end at a time while I placed blocks underneath it to raise it to about hip height. From this height I was able to get the trailer under the bow and my dad and I pushed the boat all the way onto the trailer.
One day I had to install a canopy and battery on a trailer. I decided to buy an electric boat without the factory lead acid battery so that I could install my own lithium iron phosphate battery. This boat requires a 24V, 100Ah battery, but I decided to double it to get a reliable 200Ah and a capacity of around 5000Wh. I don’t think I’ll ever be in a situation where I need fewer batteries, so more is always better. I use EnjoyBot batteries and they seem reliable, good quality and have good reviews.
The two 12V, 200Ah batteries weigh about 50 lb (23 kg) each and provide good rear stern ballast.
My parents’ pond doesn’t yet have a dock or boat ramp because we only used it for kayaking. So I bought a cool inflatable dock from BOTE. Their Dock 10 is a 100 square foot (10 square meter) floating dock that can be inflated by hand in about 10 minutes. It is very hard, and the surface of faux teak resembles real wood. It’s a bit of a stretch, but it’s weird. I know it looks like an air mattress, but walking around makes you wonder if there’s a wood or aluminum frame hidden inside.
Since there was no boat ramp, we simply parked the trailer in reverse on the grassy bank and hoped the van wouldn’t follow it.
As planned, my bright yellow electric boat slid smoothly off the trailer and into the water. I don’t know why I was shocked at how well it worked, but it was.
I tied it to the inflatable dock and quickly tested the waters by removing the back seats and looking inside the hull. Everything is dry. Again, I don’t know why I’m surprised, but it’s a good feeling.
From this moment it was time for the first flight. I took it alone at first and found that I had a fairly good list to starboard, although this did not seem to hinder my sailing. However, my father soon joined me, which balanced the weight.
The most obvious thing about the operation of this electric boat is that it is not very powerful. I didn’t expect the 500W (0.67 HP) motor to be able to move a lot of water, and it doesn’t. The GPS speedometer showed that we were running from coast to coast at a speed of 2 knots (about 2.5 mph or 4 km/h!).
It definitely felt more like a cruise ship than a speedboat, but everything seemed to work well!
Inspecting the propeller made me realize that part of the speed problem was due to inefficient propeller design. Not only is it a cheap propeller, but it floats about 20% of the time. This meant that I was inhaling a lot of air and serious cavitation occurred. You can even see it in the photographs.
Placing the passenger in the back helps provide more support to the water, but he’s still not completely submerged. It’s possible that electric boats are designed for heavy lead acid batteries and my lighter lithium batteries don’t provide enough weight in the rear. I could try moving the battery further away and maybe consider a ballast, but that wouldn’t be an ideal solution.
I could also replace the drive unit entirely. Many people have suggested that I supply a propulsion system for a motorboat, and that would be fun. Although I would probably install a couple of thrusters as it would probably be easier and wouldn’t make me worry about hull leaks.
Some people recommend mounting the trolling motor at the stern of the boat. This would be the simplest solution, but it looks interesting and I’d rather put more effort into developing a more elegant solution.
Although I would definitely refrain from throwing it in the river. With the current level of government, I don’t think this is a safe place. I’m not sure it can handle quite a lot of current. So I would wait until I upgraded the motor before heading out to any moving body of water. But as a lake boat it is ideal. It’s not fast, but it’s convenient and easy to use. This would be ideal for all those who live on all-electric lakes where combustion engine boats are not allowed.
In terms of fit and finish this boat is actually surprisingly good. There are a few places where the fiberglass is inexplicably thinner and thicker, and there is excess paint on the stern rail in one section where someone clearly didn’t bother to glue them down. But overall, this $1,000 boat is surprisingly good.
I know some people will say, “That’s not a $1,000 boat because you paid $5,000 for it!” I think it’s for me. Well, the electric boat costs $1,080, which is what I paid the factory. The rest is spent on container ships, customs brokers, taxes, shipping to the US and other related costs. The factory built and delivered this boat for $1080 and honestly I’m amazed at what they were able to do for that price. I may have been blinded by the free life jackets, but I was so happy.
Unfortunately, during the import process you spend a lot of extra money on top of the price of the product itself. But I still think I got a great deal. This boat seats five and is fun for the whole family to play on the pond. Once I install a more powerful motor, I’ll be excited to take it out on the river and maybe fish from the bow. The front entry area is a great place to stand outside the awning.
Oh, and speaking of the canopy, you can bet it will soon get solar panels. I realize I’ve done the same thing with my other EVs!
Micah Toll is a personal electric vehicle enthusiast, battery geek, and author of the #1 Amazon best-selling books DIY Lithium Batteries, DIY Solar Panels, The Complete Guide to the DIY Electric Bike, and The Electric Bike Manifesto.
Miki’s current daily rider e-bikes include the $999 Lectric XP 2.0, $1,095 Ride1Up Roadster V2, $1,199 Rad Power Bikes RadMission, and $3,299 Priority Current. But these days, this list is constantly changing.
Post time: Sep-14-2023