The challenges ahead for electric shipping

IDTechEx’s updated report ‘Electric Leisure & Sea-going Boats and Ships 2021-2040′ points to companies such as Torqeedo surpassing 100,000 electric boat drive sales – a milestone which marks steady progress for the industry.

According to the IDTechEx: “What’s remarkable about this achievement is that it has largely been met with little to no financial incentives or regulation on outboard or inland vessel emissions, which are both key drivers for other electric vehicle segments.”

Challenges ahead

IDTechEx says that as a result, growth in the sector has been steady, but also slow and is not taking off in the same way as other electric vehicle markets like passenger cars, or even categories within the marine sector, such as offshore support vessels.

Part of the apathy towards restricting boating emissions, the report explains, is down to prioritising the largest problems first. While emissions per outboard can be over 30 times the emissions per car, the scale of the problem is still much smaller: no more than 500,000 outboards are sold yearly compared with roughly 80 million cars (OICA).

Allowing boats a free pass on emissions undermines the massive effort from other industries, and ultimately will lead to a more difficult transition down the line.

There are also no incumbents on the market says the report. The result is start-ups like Torqeedo have literally created and driven the electric leisure boating market almost single-handedly. In short, incumbents entering the market would improve competition, improve awareness of electric boats as an option and likely increase overall market sales.

IDTechEx’s report also points out that there is still a lack of emissions regulation. This challenge goes hand in hand with the last point. Policymakers’ apathetic attitude towards emissions regulation for outboards and inland vessels has allowed incumbents to easily develop and sell products that increase overall boating emissions, rather than reduce it.

Lastly, there is the issue of high battery prices. System-level maritime battery prices are several times higher than those of other industries such as electric cars and stationary energy storage acting as a hindrance to adoption.

The new IDTechEx report forms a part of the broader electric vehicle and energy storage research at IDTechEx summarised in one master report called ‘Electric Vehicles 2020-2030: 2nd Edition’.