What the heck is Peugeot doing building a sideless, bottomless speedboat/yacht hybrid thing with Benetau? How does that thing even float? Won't your feet get awfully wet? These are a number of questions that entered my head before I realized the Sea Drive concept isn't actually a boat at all.
The Sea Drive concept is a technology demonstrator unit that was built for the Paris boat show, which Peugeot used to show off its i-Cockpit touchscreen console. Benetau is integrating Peugeot's car tech with marine systems and calling it all Ship Control. There, I just went through the process of feeling like an idiot, so you don't have to.
Basically, it's these two French companies saying "here's our vision of what a car-style touch screen could do if we stuck it in a boat." The system can handle navigation, lighting, Wi-Fi, climate control and entertainment systems, much like it would in a car, but adds boatier items such as bilge pump management and presumably finer control of that button that makes the outboard motors lift up and down. That was always my favorite one.
The idea is to make boats as user-friendly and simple to manage as the average car. Benetau is beginning to incorporate the tech into its boats. So visitors to the Nautic Paris Boat Show last week were able to step inside the Sea Drive concept, sit down and have a play with the touchscreen control system.
Which, while very practical, is way less cool than building a sideless, bottomless speedboat/yacht hybrid thing.
Source: Peugeot via Lulop
