Hybrid Boats? Is there anybody making them?

I'm ready to see a hybrid boat, gas and electric powered, like the Toyota and the Honda. I'm sure it could happen and with batteries, your boat would kick out a huge wake. Also,the electric motor could be controlled by computer and the speed would be right on no matter what. Hopefully some boat company is working on this, but I'm sure it will add 10% to 20% to the cost.

Maybe a good concept, but probably more than a 10% to 20% increase in cost. It takes a lot of horse power to move a heavily weighted boat throught the water and something about electricity and water makes me wonder LOL

Hey Jonathan, try and remember that some of the most powerful and expensive motoryachts in the world are powered by diesel / electric motors combinations. The concept's been around for a long time and is very sound engineering. The drawbacks for a wakeboard boat application are obviously the size and weight of the setup, along with the cost. I'm sure someone, someday will resolve these issues and a 'Green' boat will be born. Just hope I'm around to see it.

Wait a minute here...the jump from gas to diesel-electric is skipping an important stop: diesel. Seems that a good diesel would be the perfect choice for a towboat. Oh yeah, that's already been discusse here.

Diesel-electrics are used in ships because it allows freedom in engine placement (don't have to have the prop mechanically connected to the engines.) This same flexibility is used well in the hybrid cars, but hybrid and electric cars also benefit because of regenerative braking (which a boat couldn't enjoy). The regenerative braking oversomes the additional conversion losses of going from fuel to rotational energy (and heat) to electrical energy (and heat) to rotational energy (and heat).

The real deal would be a fuel cell. Few moving parts, flat and long, fuel efficient, pure electric output to drive a motor as well and Grant's amps... Best of all with that thing is the flatness - picture knocking a refridgerator down, then trimming off a 12-inch deep slice. That's maybe 200HP right there. A pair of them babies in the floorboards, and talk about storage...

BTW, although hydrogen is the great fuel cell fuel, most of the ones in service use regular fuel like diesel or gas. Fuel conditioners included with the fuel cell break the hydrogen out of the regular fuel. Still efficient, but nothing like how it will eventually get where there's H2 at the pumps.

Derek is close, you want a boat that uses water for a fuel in the fuel cell and then it creates electric energy by seperating the hydrogen and Oxigen powering the boat. As there would be an unlimmited supply of fuel that way. I work for a company that is involved in fuel cells.

wakeboardin: water isn't the fuel in a fuel cell, it is the byproduct (exhaust). You don't produce electricity when you separate water into hdyrogen and Oxygen, you produce water when you combine hydrogen and oyxgen.

Rod, I am aware of that, it was just a wishful thought. I guess I wasn't real clear on that aspect and should have speled oxygen correctly as well. Thanks

How 'bout you USE electricity to free the H2 from H20, then use the H2 to power the fuel cell. As long as there's more electricity generated in the H2 conversion than is used in the H2O splitting...

What the next 50 years holds...

Hate to break it to ya, but that is impossible. Any engine the produces more energy than it consumes could run indefinatly producing an infinite amount of power. First of all that is a basic rule of of physics, you CANNOT create energy. You can only change its form, meaning if you break apart an atom it would require the same amount of energy to reform it, or the opposite. Hate to break it to ya =)

Darn. I guess the next 50 years will just see a staggering amount of trips to Chevron. And more armed forays into the middle east.