The Quebecois company behind the one-time fastest electric motor technology on water, Vision Marine Technologies shows no signs of slowing down. This year, the company has been hard at work on securing patents for a number of e-drive technologies and components, as well as launching a virtually indestructible boat hull. Now it's pushing its famed outboard technology toward the bow with the E-Motion 180e inboard system, a more integrated electric marine drive that's every bit as powerful as its outboard.
While Vision Marine Technologies has been laser-focused on all-electric outboards for the past several years, that wasn't always the case. The company changed its name in 2020 but was originally the Canadian Electric Boat Company (CEBC), an old hand in the modern e-boat market that built vessels relying on third-party electric and ICE propulsion systems. One of its well-known models, the Bruce22 was built in a number of configurations, including an inboard layout with a shaft drive that could be powered by either a gas or electric motor.
Long story short, Vision was already plenty familiar with inboard systems before it began adapting the 180E outboard to an inboard layout. It used that expertise in reconfiguring 95% of the outboard's components into an integrated drive unit. And as is obvious from the name, the 180e inboard delivers the same continuous 180 horsepower that Vision once leveraged to tag the 180E the most powerful electric outboard in the world (alas, it no longer is).
With the 180e inboard, Vision looks to offer serious all-electric power and performance to a wider range of boats. More specifically, it hopes to increase the use of electric propulsion across the spectrum of ski boats, sailboats, recreational boats, catamarans, wakeboard boats, tugboats and cruisers.
"The E-Motion 180e Inboard leverages the expertise we've built since 2015, starting with our work on inboard electric propulsion in the Bruce22 model," said Alexandre Mongeon, Vision Marine Technologies CEO. "The solid foundation of our E-Motion outboard system, developed from this inboard experience, ensures the reliability and efficiency of our new inboard offering."
Like the outboard, the 180e inboard will benefit from Vision's IP67 marine-grade High Voltage (HV) Battery System. Buyers can configure the scalable battery setup with one, two or three packs for between 43- and 129-kWh of total capacity. Builders looking for more range can also add a generator to create a range-extended hybrid setup. Each battery pack is designed to operate independently, so should one pack in a multi-pack system fail, the other(s) can get the boat safely back to shore.
Unsatisfied with existing market battery solutions, Vision developed the nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) HV battery system to exceed automotive standards. The company intends to offer it as a standalone solution as well as a critical component of its E-Motion 180 inboard and outboard systems.
Vision debuted the 180e inboard system this week at the IBEX international boat show in Tampa, Florida. The firm says that it's already performed successful sea trials with the 180e mounted to an inboard vessel from a prominent European boat brand, so we suspect it will only be a matter of time before it starts arriving on production boats.
Source: Vision Marine Technologies
