The Electric Boat Revolution Is Here

0:00 Today on the podcast, we're going to be talking to Alexandra Mangiau, who leads the Vision Marine Technologies Boating Company, sells boats, so sells gas powered boats, also electric boats. We're here to talk about the new era of electric boating. We've talked a little bit about electric boating earlier this week when we talked about sort of the rent to use type of boating model. And today, we're going to be talking to Alexandra about how this new industry or you part of the boating industry has kind of taken people, you know, by surprise, I guess, I think a lot of times, and where people are like, "Hey, this is actually really cool. We're really going for this. And this is something that we really want." We're going to talk about electric boating, electric motors, how it differs from like, from gas powered motors, all on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Because this is the podcast where you find out all about ocean news, all about new technologies that can help the ocean here Monday to Friday, every week. If you want to know more, if you want to find out this is the type of information that you like, hit that follow button right now on your favorite podcast app so you can listen to the next episode.

1:10 Okay, so today we're going to be talking to Alexandra Mangiau, which is great because he's Canadian, he's from Montreal. He has a business where he's actually recently expanded the business for Vision Marine Technology. And his vision of the future is electric boating. And I think what we get to talk about on today's episode is really special because it's a new way of boating that actually provides a benefit not only to the environment, but also to the people who use it. And you're going to hear why that's happening in this interview. Before we get into that, though, if you want to support the show, all you have to do is go to speakupforblue.com forward slash Patreon, join our Patreon community. I would love to see you there. I would love to hear from you. It supports the show. We have editors and all that kind of stuff and it just helps get more information out there. We do stuff on YouTube. We're just stuff on on on TikTok and on Instagram and on Facebook and we'd love to get your support to help us do that as well. So speakupforblue.com forward slash Patreon. And of course, here is the interview with Alexandra Mangiau. Enjoy and I'll talk to you after. Hey, Alexandra, welcome to the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Are you ready to do that?

2:20 I'm ready to talk about electric boats. I was born ready, Andrew. So let's start. All right. I'm super excited. There's a couple of reasons why I'm saying one. We're talking about boats over the last month or so. I had an itch that I want to buy a boat at some point in the next five years or so. But also I get to talk about electric boats today, which is which is a lot of fun. And I get to talk to a fellow Canadian fellow Quebecer, which is a lot of fun. My family's from Quebec. So it's always great to be able to talk to people that, you know, we've got some some things in common and we love boats and we're going to talk all about being on the ocean, being on lakes and what it's like to have an electric vehicle on the water. So I'm super excited for this.

3:01 Before we get into all that, though, Alexandra, why don't you just let us know who you are and what you do. So my name is Alex. CEO and co-founder of Visionary Technology. I was born and raised in Montreal, Canada, and I'm an avid boat racer and an electrician by trade. And I've been boating for the past 30 years and I've been living on the water for the past 25 years. So I know how cool boat could be. And also I was enjoying every second I could. So to be on the water when I was living in Montreal. So I would say eight weeks out of the 52. I was able to go boating.

3:42 But I can tell you crazy stories. I was cutting ice to get my boat out on the water to test them because we got icy water starting. I would say November till April. So I could not wait. And I was. But we'll discuss about that. But that's where I am. And I've created along the way an electric outboard system that could fit almost any boats between 18 to 30 feet single motors or twin motors. And we've built different types of boat for rentals operation a bit like the golf cart. They were very popular back then. And today we are actually providing a technology that could be installed on any manufacturer that wants to use an outboard motor from the 20 doors power to 400 hours. So I will be pleased to give you more information today. Yeah absolutely. I'm super excited about this because we've seen the advent of the electric vehicle like the electric car or an SUV or something on the road.

4:34 That's a hit popularity. No matter what people are saying in the mainstream when people are like oh forget EVs or forget this or forget that. A lot of people are buying electric vehicles or hybrid vehicles. And we're seeing that sort of increase. A couple of years ago, I was working with the electric vehicle. I did an interview with somebody from a flex Marine who talked about electric vehicle electric boats and I was like, oh, this is a really cool concept. I'm like, I wonder how this all works. I haven't seen a lot of talk about electric boats before. Especially on the ocean. Especially on like larger lakes or even like cottage lakes and so forth. So I'm super excited to talk about the system that you built and how you got into that. So I want to talk a little bit about your origin story. You mentioned a little bit. You've always been involved in boats. You've always been involved in boats. It's just a little bit about the nature of the ocean. It's a little bit about the nature of the ocean. It's a little bit about the nature of the ocean. It's a little bit about the nature of the ocean.

5:18 So I want to know what you think about this, the ways that you're working in the industry, how you started your career and how you started your career in the boats and racing and with your electrician background. I imagine that is something that always interested you. When did you start working in the industry? Like, in the boating industry. Were you always out of out of the blue, a small business with the co-founder with me, my prior partner, Patrick Bobby, we started a currency traded office.

5:58 So we were trading currency and we were ritual fitting and importing boats as early as 1980, 98 and 99 were importing both from US. And most of those boats were speed boats because they're not, they don't build them in Canada. So most of those boats were built in Florida, started importing them smaller and bigger and bigger and was pretty good. And we learned about the market and we also, we were also very successful during the crash of 2008. There were no crash in Canada and we were successful by importing that. It was a hobby during the weekends and we're racing boats. And after racing and racing boats, we sold the business, bought ourself, got two kids with our wife and we had started enjoying life and racing more.

6:44 And in 2013, after a boat race in Toronto, Thousand Island, I rent into a gentleman named Ian Bruce, Olympic sailor and very well-known architect, boat designer who actually designed and owned laser sailboats. He sold over 200,000 sailboats in 141 countries. So I was pulling out from the boat ramp with a 46 footer outer limit. And I saw Ian Bruce polishing. He was probably 75 years old back then or 70 years old polishing small sailboats. And I look at the sailboat and it looked like a boat that that we had in storage in a building that me and Patrick had purchased earlier with tooling.

7:29 So we bought a building and they were tooling of boats. And long story short, I've parked a big raceboats after a boat race and Ian Bruce looked at me and started talking and asking me how much fuel we've burned during the race with that big boat and that one at over close to 3000 horsepower. And I was ashamed to give him the right number and I will never give you the number of how much it was expensive to race one of those boats. But that's the place to drive at 140, 50 miles per hour. It's very competitive. And he looked at me, gave me his business card and says pass by my office in St. Catherine close to the St. Lawrence Yacht Club on Monday. And I want to show you something very cool. So I didn't know Ian Bruce was back then.

8:10 So I was excited. I went to the fact that it's little shop on the next Monday with my partner, Patrick. And Ian Bruce showed us an amazing classic replica of 1947 Chris Craft back barrel. But it was used with mahogany and that thing was a lake. And you're talking 2000 electric. Wow. Tesla was actually using Lotus frame. So we was in 2008 was already building those boats. And we took that boat out for a spin and the St. Lawrence and run about 38, 40 miles per hour. And for me, I was driving the weekend earlier, 48 hours earlier, I was doing driving at 2000 horsepower gas boat.

8:52 It was impossible. That guy was a rocket scientist. He was very talented, smart, kind, generous of his time. And he showed us also pictures of boats that he was yet design in the past. And he says, we own those tooling. It's one of in one of our building. We've been working on those small electric boats, me and Patrick for like hobby and the designer of those boats. And we still produce today those boats because we started that business around that. It's called the Fandale. I think we sold like five or 600 of those since 2013. From a small, you don't, you never know who you're going to meet. So Ian Bruce, Ian Bruce started negotiating with us, helping asking us if we want to take over his production and crazy story happened.

9:34 He had an accident with the last boat produced. It was on the way to do the delivery. We helped him out, getting out of that situation by fixing the boat with him because we use, we have a shop and the race boats and we have space and we became friends and we ended up purchasing the tooling to produce those. Bruce 22 and he started building the first electric one with us showing us how to build it and who were the suppliers to get those parts. Most of the suppliers were car suppliers back then. And sadly, half in half of the production of the boat, I didn't told us that, but he was fighting a cancer. He passed away. I'm sorry to hear that. So we had two, two major last.

10:17 We lost a mentor and we also lost the person that was guiding us along the way of the assembly of that boat. Once it happened a few times in my life, we had to complete half of the work by ourselves. But it's prices because you're learning a lot when you're stuck with an I like resolving challenge. I resolve challenge 10 times a day. And I started resolving challenge and the boating space with with that first project and others following following that project. And we started working on that and we became very passionate. Me and Patrick and we said, this is pretty, pretty awesome. But people, the technology was not there.

10:58 The price of parts were very expensive. So we were building smaller golf cart type of boat with the trolling motor that everyone knows. They're very fishing boats as a small 48 rolling motor that the six miles per hour. So we're building small gondolas and selling them. And in 2014, I started doing boat shows and I ended up in Newport Beach, California. And we flew in. We shipped two boats for the first boat show in California and Newport Beach. And I landed at the airport, walked by the restaurant at night to have a cocktail and a meal. And I started seeing electric boats couldn't eat.

11:40 I've seen at least that night 100, 150 boats driving around in Newport Beach. And I've learned the next morning because we had received our boat the morning the next morning. And we had to launch the boat to bring them to the boat show because the boat, the boat was on the water in Newport Beach. Of course. And I've discovered that there were 8000 electric boats in the Newport Beach Harbor back then. In 2014? Yeah, he's Duffy, the mayor and the founder of the Duffy boats was he opened that thing in 1967 or 60. So this guy was a genius back then. He took golf cart motor with Trojan batteries and he started building and selling boats. And everyone or everyone around Newport Beach and Huntington Beach were the beach boys were.

12:24 And Duffy looked like a beach boy. And he started. He built over 14,000 of them and he changed the rules and regulation in the harbors in California. So you're limited at six miles per hour. So we are in 2015 me and Patrick were freaking out because we don't know what how to sell those boats from Montreal. And we were building 25, 30 boats a year shipping them in Italy, UK and one year and sending them on eBay. And when we came here, wow, this is the place we want to be. And Patrick told me it's not happening. We're too poor to live in California. We're too poor to it's impossible to find a lease, find a place, become successful. You're dreaming. Yeah, the worst thing in life with me, you say you cannot.

13:06 Don't ever do it. You can't. Yeah, it's it's fuel. So in 17 with so that the boat show left it and I saw myself living here and having him Newport Beach as we speak today and right over 85 over 85,000 rentals from that location. That I did my first boat show. So the location where I am, it's the location that the boat show is being host the day that I came. So I fight my way through because if he was the mayor, so permit city permits and he's the manufacturer and the biggest electric boat builder as we speak again today in the world. So it was challenging. So he didn't eat like somebody up and coming, you know, having something like a competitor essentially coming in.

13:49 It makes it a little difficult to to like kind of get get headway, right? It was nasty, but oh, really? I told you earlier. I like I like I like when people say no. Yeah, this is fuel. So love it. We've built we scaled up production starting to use the rental operation as a showroom on the water. We started with a personal lease with a million dollars in guaranteed in 2016 where Duffy wanted it to be. So we took the spot, the new spot that was becoming very popular in Newport Beach. It's called the Little Village Marina took that space, uh, sign up personally for a million dollar lease. Patrick was building boats in Montreal shipping them to me and I started renting and operating that place in 2017.

14:36 10 boats and we grew up up to 30 boats in that location, but it was stuff. There's one boat ramp. It's a city boat ramp. So you need the city approval. You need to be a citizen. And I was Canadian. I was a foreign. It was challenging. It was challenging. Yeah, I can imagine while we were successful doing that. We were also working on the development of the technology that became the emotion because now we were successful. We were small building smaller boats, putting them in rentals, exposing them on the water. People could rent them, test them. And if they loved it, they can write a check and leave with them. So it was like a rent. They could they could try it out. Get on the boat that you have the new technology. You're like, okay, let's just give this for a spin.

15:17 We'll come on the boat with you to show you all the ins and outs. And then you're like, oh, I really like they basically fall in love with it. And then and then you just be like, all right, cool. Do you want it? You could buy it. So like they're renting it, but they're kind of in the back of their head. They're looking at purchasing a boat as well. And I'm still using that same technique today because I'm sold out. So today, Andrew, his wife once is calling one of my salesman. I want to buy one of those. Can I come to your dealership? We're sold out as we speak. So I'll make you and your family fly to Newport Beach. Now we have different locations in Florida as well. So I would make you fly in. You'll test the boat. It's free. It's on the house for the next two hours. And if you're buying the boat, we'll pay the travel because you've moved with your family. So it's been a very nice travel experience and you're going to be driving that thing.

16:00 And you're going to be seeing about seven or eight thousand electric boats around. So it's the standard. This is where because California is between 10 to 15 years ahead of everyone. If you should see how many electric cars around. So you're not crazy. If you live upstate New York that you want to buy an electric boat and you want that thing to be delivered to you because you see where the market is going and all things are. This is the future. Correct. So I'm still using that same technique that I start using back then. Having a small rental operation and using it as a showroom. And I was scaling production and the cash, the money that Patrick and I were making were reinvested in developing the high power technology with the Bruce 22 electric.

16:41 And two years after stop stopping, stop stopping to race on the with the big outer limit boat. So in 2015, if I'm right or 16, we brought three electric Bruce to be the official pace boat for those gas race boats. So when you're racing, you've got a line of 15 big powerful boats and you got a A pays boat that leaves with the flag and then it gets away and and you need a pretty fast boat to be the pace. Yeah, you're going to need and people were looking at us because you got thousands of people looking at those races.

17:24 So they were looking at us like you but the attention we got back then and I felt I felt the energy system. If they're looking at us and I get more attention on my 22 foot criss craft replica, it means that I'm not crazy. Those guys on million dollars boat and they know that there's an I seen the interest. So from that it was the push and never raised boats. I got a lot of friends, throw a professional world champion in the boating space. I'm still friend with them. I've been racing electric boat now, but long story short, it's small boats brought us into the real space of having vision marine technology. So back then company was called Canadian electric boat from the operation in California in 2019.

18:11 I've met some bankers 24th of December. They came and look at they heard about the company that we could probably scale up. And if I had the funding, I could probably develop the emotional board because you have spent millions of dollars from the profit we made over the past. We see from 17 to 2013 to 2018, 19 million Patrick. Everything was invested. But now we could add fuel to bring it to another level. And the space was getting very hot with NASDAQ and tech companies. So those two gentlemen met me on a Saturday morning. I think it was December 24th. Long story short, they love what they saw. They were, they never drove any boat. So I put them on the rental operation on a small boat.

18:52 They never drove a boat of their life and they were bankers from New York. They loved it. It's just wow. This and I tell imagine driving that thing at 40, 50 miles per hour in a space that you have the right to drive them around because in Newport Beach, you cannot go fast. It's limited because stuff. Yeah. I put restriction a bit like everywhere in Florida, as we speak today, most of the waterways. Yeah. Ocean wise, you're good, but but in their coastal, it's you got to watch your speed, right? Correct. So certain sign a term sheet and we went public in 2020 and November did the IPO myself with my assistant straight IPO and from there we never stopped. And this is where we started out developing great relationship with both manufacturers taking their boats, removing the fuel tank, putting the batteries developed to replace or mimic the size of a fuel tank, develop the great relationship with McLaren engineering, because we've been testing our system for since 2015.

19:53 Yeah. I need someone that will validate that. So we did the McLaren engineering dino testing about for 24 months, they validate the power at the propeller. If it was not overheating and they were swapping engine every 30 days and learning how to do the commercialization and doing the mass assembly with Lenimar, the motherhead companies, the building market cap company. So we think it's for making me even more than that. Um, build the team to improve and increase the volume of production and get also the system protected with patent. So these are all they were all new things that we've put in place and slowly from one integration to a second to another one doing boat shows with manufacturers because back then we couldn't have the right to sell boats.

20:45 We were taking a boat from a Winnebago that owns Barletta. So we get a boat for free. We put the system on. We do the testing together with their engineering teams, the CG. It can still be certified with the US Coast Guard. Okay. Let's now let's go. You're going to go out there at our dealer meeting and you're going to present in front of 400 dealers. And if you're getting 10 thumbs up, we're going to move for. And then if we get a hundred thumbs up, what are we going to do? And you get a hundred thumbs up because the deuces. Wow, it's good. But this is 2021, 22, 23 and things are moving. And we cannot actually do integration as fast as we can. There's it's too heavy. So we said we're going to choose the right one.

21:26 So we choose most of the manufacturers we choose were NASDAQ listed companies or big boat manufacturers. Yeah, it was, it was probably a mistake as, as I see it today, it was giving a lot of credibility to the product. But when the market slows down, those big guys are putting the handbrake and it did happen in 24. So EV space market too much boat produce after COVID because during COVID it was insane. But in the small carbon glass boat, you couldn't get them. And this is where the market start. The EV space start cooling down for us. So end of 2024. So 2025 was challenging, but I'm forgetting a big part of the story.

22:11 In 2016, after the Fort Lauderdale boat show, as it was September, I said, I need to expose boats in Florida. It's about 25 hours of driving. It's closer to California. So I started advertising and putting boats in malls close to the Christmas tree during Christmas time and putting them in fountains in malls, Galleria malls and places like that in Florida and putting one in the water in the canal. So people could go in to do the Christmas shopping. They see the boat at the mall. They want to, they want to see trial it putting them on a, on a golf cart, bringing them right away on the water and full experience. And I met a gentleman, correct.

22:53 And people, 99.9% of the boats we sell electric, they don't get financed. The consumer of an electric boat or an electric car is a different buyer than your regular gas car or interesting. Yes. It's interesting. And, uh, met a man called Roger Moore. Uh, his nickname is, uh, double seven. And he had a huge dealership group that it was building. It was called nautical venture. They were all orange dealerships and they were all wearing shirts, became friends with him. And I love what he said the story. He owns both dealership and we became friends and he became a mentor. So he was the one along the past 10 years presenting me to Benito CEO Starcraft, uh, actual part.

23:39 So he had those connections because he was one of the best dealerships in the U S selling their product. So it was, it was easy for him to present Alex as the new guy with the tech and the, the, the, the electric outboards to be installed in a Benito boat into a Starcraft boat. So when I was arriving with Roger, the relationship with manufacturers were, and Roger was very successful building a number one dealer in 2024 over the U S top 100 dealers in the U S building nautical venture, but Roger was, uh, selling big brands and, uh, he was stuck after COVID because during COVID, he was running out of boats, started ordering more boats, more boats, more boats.

24:21 And then COVID crashed. Yes. Yeah. Everything stopped selling. He had about a hundred million dollars worth of boat in 13 of his dealership, uh, all across Florida and couldn't actually, uh, survive like that. He needed plan B. So he was looking at for an equity for company to come and rescue him or buy him out. But it came with a lot of, uh, challenges because he owes those boats to the bank. So, but for me, I was seeing it in a different way that I would use those dealerships for distribution, uh, marketing and actually, uh, recon for the market. You want to buy an electric boat, come in one of our dealerships, and I could use the legacy business to still keep selling gas boat. So, uh, we did a, about eight months due deal on the acquisition, uh, sign up the deal and finally closed the deal in June 20th, 2025. So about a year ago from now, with a lot of debt, a lot of debt, a lot of boat. And we cleaned the house. We sold a 94, 90 over 90% of the inventory on real reduce almost all debt to close to $5 million. So from what they had in floor plan, now it's, yeah, but we were able to push the same time. The inventory we had built in Montreal on the EV boats sold out, sold everything in during that period and built a book of orders because now people have a place to go to talk to discuss. And we have a lot of footprint

25:54 in boat shows and the presence of nautical ventures in this space is very well respected in its big Roger built something very strong. Uh, he built a very nice empire, uh, but he got stuck by the market. It's not because of bad decisions. It was just, yeah, it was just the way I mean, COVID screwed a lot of people over in terms of what happened. Businesses going up and down and yeah, I can see that. 95% of the dealer in the US were in the same position as Roger were, but they were not as proactive as we were during the past 12 months of, uh, the stocking, the inventory, some of them were very stiff on pricing. Yeah, it was time more change. We reduced the inventory, reduced the operation. And instead of having in one country four dealerships, we ended up having one and we are actually improving services and parts and having different types of revenue with the EV space adding on top of that. So we ended up having our own distribution. So if you do a quick recap, so we do build boats in Montreal, we built also outboards.

26:57 Yeah, we have the dealerships that sells gas boats, but also electric boats and we do maintenance for any electric boats, but also, and no one does that in the US. No one has the knowledge to do high voltage because we've created a system with my team. Yeah, with an architecture of 800 volts. So you cannot find a guy that will fix your electric boat. Right. And but the guys in Europe were 10 years ahead of us are building those system and they don't have anyone in the US. So we came a very knowledgeable source for them. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I'm talking a lot here. So I'm going to let you know, it's it's it's perfect. It's perfect. Because like I kind of want to get into that technology in terms of because, you know, you kind of mentioned earlier that, you know, the gas market, the market for gas boats, gas powered boats is kind of going down and the EV boats are coming up. You mentioned obviously Newport Beach, California, usually ahead of time in terms of this type of technology, like environmentally friendly technology.

27:53 Can you just talk about let's start off with just the benefits of having an EV boat, you know, from a, from an environmental perspective and then a cost perspective as well for the boater because that always kind of comes in hand. Both you and I, we drive electric vehicles on the road. You obviously drive electric vehicles on the water to when you when you get the chance. We'll talk about some of the some of the accolades around that in a second. But can you just talk about like the environmental and the financial benefits of having an EV boat? The first thing that people notice, as I mentioned earlier, if you're coming to buy a gas pontoon, I will let you drive it and then I will make you drive the same boat with an electric engine. It's quiet as hell. And then as a captain perspective, the torque is insane.

28:41 So it jumped on plane because that's the cool part on a boat. It's when it jumps on plane because if it drags, it takes forever. Then it jumps on plane very quickly. You don't feel the vibration of the engine. It's pretty smooth. And I can talk to my wife, my kids, my father-in-law at 20, 22 miles per hour and having a nice discussion because it's also social. If you're boating alone, it's not fast. So and then the so the noise first, then the torque, the experience, a bit like an electric car. But once you know that it's like having a Tesla, you don't see just racing every corner because people know the power they have. They don't have anything to prove. So on the boat, it jumps on plane. You like it. But most of the boat of the boat user do less than nine nautical miles every time that their boats out because we did a study before getting into the market. And that's the average coming from the boat club members.

29:36 From a carefree boat club, people are doing nine nautical miles and most of that they're doing nothing at trolling and then they push it for four or five minutes, 25, 30 miles per hour. Just more enjoyable that way. Like for a lot of people who are on the boats, it's the point of being out on the water and stuff. Yeah. And then something also, it doesn't smell. I'm going to tell you why, because when you're driving one of the electric pontoons and you cross another gas boat. You smell it. But when you're on it and you have those fumes. Yeah. It's just so used to it sometimes because that's what you're used to, right? And the other thing is when you're done, your day is done. You're coming back after seven, eight hours of boating. You bring that thing back home if you have a dock, regular shore power, same shore power that your gas owner would use to get his boat charged because every boat needs to be charged at night.

30:26 Most of them because they have bilge pump and they have accessories that needs to make sure that they work if the rain gets into it. So we're using the same power cord. And if you're so that's a very good point because as I told you, I've been owning houses on the water for the past 25 years and the challenge was Saturday morning. And when I want to take my boats out on the water, I need to go buy some gas, but that thing in the back of my truck. Yeah. And then I have to walk with those head. Yeah. And down the down whichever way you need to go, like especially I'm thinking cottages in Northern Ontario down a hill up a hill downstairs. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. You have to take your wife range over and then you spill some gas on the carpet and you just ruin it or an escalator Yukon and it's a hundred thousand dollar car that smells gas.

31:13 And for sure. You need a second car almost to do the maintenance of your boat and to pull those boats out and and you're using it so little. So back home, get that thing on charge. So the benefit is how easy is it to run or operate and the system of the tail trim of the boat adjust by themselves as well. So the knowledge to drive a boat around is very, very easy. It's much easier system has come with a huge screen as big as twice the size of your iPad, iPad, like a Tesla screen. Yeah. Gives you the range with a big number things that you have with your gas boats. What's the range of your gas onto? Good luck when the needle is down. You screwed. What's the mileage you can do with a system we have created because the experience we have made around over the past 80,000 rental, 88,000, 85,000 rentals. You have a big number. That's the mileage.

32:04 You the range in miles or kilometers, depending where you are at the speed you're doing. So at 10, 10 miles per hour, the number, let's say it's a hundred miles. If you go 20 miles per hour, it will decrease. So the numbers is adapting with the speeds you're doing a lot like your car today. Your cars have that. But both don't have that. Right. On top of that, you have a screen, a map with a shadow and the shadow is the range that you can achieve at that speed. Okay. At 15% we have a limp mode. So if you're doing 24, 45, 45, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50. 50, 50, 50, 50. 50, 50, 1.5 miles per hour. And you have 20% you're having a good time when you're going to hit 15% it will slow down slowly. You won't even feel it. Yeah, you're going to hit about nine miles per hour. It will give you range for about an hour 15 minutes. So there's no reason for us to see one of our electric boat running out of gas and we see a lot of gas boats running stuck on a boat, a gas boat without gas, then you need to find someone that will bring gas on any of our boats or you bring to someone else's house and they don't have fuel, so you're screwed.

33:16 You bring the boat to any places, any houses can get our boat charged, as I mentioned earlier, because they can be charged with, they don't need any grid because the charging system is installed in the boat. So 120 volt or 240 and if your boat is on a trailer and you want to use your power wall because it's on a trailer, you have a power wall at home, you use a power wall, we have to develop an adapter that goes from the power wall adapter or the regular fast charging to your your shore power charging outlet. So it's convenient. It's so it's easy. It looks crazy when you don't own a boat, you don't see them on the water.

33:56 Once you're in one of them, you just see everything. Yeah, it's like driving an electric car for two years, then OK, I'm going to get back to a big 6.6 gas liter. Yeah, I think what's interesting too is like, you know what? Before I bought my electric car, I was fascinated and very concerned about running out of electricity. Like, you know, like before you buy an electric vehicle, you're like, OK, like, are there enough, you know, chargers like what do I have to worry about, like all this kind of stuff. And when you get a car like an electric vehicle, you start to drive it and you start to realize that there are enough charges around. You can charge at home, as you mentioned, like it's easy to plug in at night in Ontario.

34:39 You get like super cheap to to plug in overnight. And so it's really, really easy to navigate around when you're doing this. Now, I'm not talking about Saskatchewan and minus 40 for three weeks after the year or anything like that. But I'm talking about southern Ontario going to northern Ontario. It's really easy to you're not going to run out of electricity if you plan properly and usually gets planned for you on a boat. You just mentioned that, like, even when you're on in the middle of the water, middle of the lake, say, or along the coastline of the of the ocean, you know, I'd probably be I would imagine that's probably one of the biggest questions you get. Right. The most of the most questions you get is like, hey, you know, like, am I going to run out?

35:21 But you just mentioned it. It already does it automatically where it slows it down, you know, to like nine miles an hour. And then you guys like that you have basically have an hour and 15 or whatever amount of time to get back to wherever you're going. And you're pretty much good or even get to a charging station or a cord just to get you that charge. I feel like that would like settle a lot of people down in terms of getting, you know, around the charging aspect of an electric electric vehicle. On the water or even on the on land. Yes. And as I mentioned earlier, we do sell a lot of gas boat from our nautical venture dealership. And I would say that I never hear heard or saw one of our electric customer calling us because they run out of electricity.

36:09 And they know what to do. But I can tell you on the gas site. Yeah. It's going. They don't know what's going on, but the boat doesn't work anymore. Right. Okay, so I think you have gas. You've been driving electric cars. How many times were you stuck on the highway on the street without power and the car doesn't work? Never. Never. So the biggest challenge we have is to actually have people to look at the product because they don't think it exists. So once they see it, it's the visibility. So what I've been asking God to bring in my life is Mercury or Honda to start working on something close to what they've been building for decades, 200 horsepower gas motor.

36:55 So I wanted 200 gas, 200 horsepower electric motor. So people say would say, you know what if Honda is doing it? It makes sense. Keep in mind in 2010, 12, 13, the only guy that was doing really electric cars was Tesla and people were betting against him. And today you're buying electric car. People will say, no, no, no, no, no, no. It could be an RBMW, but yeah, it's, this is where we are. We are in 2010, 11. So it's very, very new and we need a big player to come on board after Tesla, then Ford came on board and GM and BMW and everyone's doing something electric. And it's not for everyone. And I'm not trying to change the world. I'm just giving the options.

37:35 And if we can get 1% of the market per year, that would be awesome because it's huge in the US. Well, I feel like it can get big in Canada too, you know, in terms of how many people buy boats. You've got the Great Lakes. You've got so many lakes in and around and you've got the coastlines, of course, you know, Vancouver, like on the BC side on the East coast, you've got all those Atlantic provinces and anything within Quebec and more and more people are getting out on the water there, you know, and with climate change, it actually benefits people because it'll probably be warmer longer. You can probably be on the water longer. You know, there's it seems to be like a really easy sell from a lot of different perspectives because, you know, not only from an environment, so environmental it is, you know, it's not you're not using gasoline, you're not using fossil fuels.

38:25 So right there, you're you're reducing it. There's no leakage of oil or gas because you're not using oil or gas. And then the noise is down. So if you think about a lot of boats that are on the ocean and you worry about marine mammals that have to worry about noise and communication, you know, you're pretty good, you know, other than getting out of their way so you don't hit them. But in terms of noise, they're not going to hear you coming because, you know, you're quiet. So that's that's always nice. But then from a from an actual user perspective, you know, which is what probably most people will focus on. Like you mentioned, it's quiet so you can be social on the boat while you're in motion.

39:05 It's easy, like it's less, less cost to charge and to, you know, you don't have to focus on gasoline and all that kind of stuff. You don't have to buy it and everything like that. And then, you know, it's just it's like less maintenance because there's less parts to maintain. So it seems like a pretty easy sell. Why don't we see is it just because it's just limited and the technology is kind of coming onto the market now where people are starting to realize why don't we see it in more markets other than like California and Florida? Like why don't we see it up in Canada as much? We see we see it much. We see them much more on the across the ocean.

39:49 So I would say in Europe, I would say it's about 10 to 15 percent of the market is going that way. And there are there are a few years ahead of us. We see them here without knowing that they are electric. As I mentioned, Duffy had built 14 or 50 thousand of them. And we did build the fan tails and the vault, probably three, twenty five hundred or three thousand bolts like that. So it's not a lot. It's still 17000. There's flux and other smaller guys. It's not a big segment of the market because keep in mind there's about three hundred and thirty thousand outboard sold per year only in the U.S. And it's a very small market compared to the European market.

40:30 The problem that we have is there's no big players going that direction because they have built an infrastructure and a product chain assembly for ice engine. And if you start changing that and because it's much it's a much different animal. The only thing you have is the calling. That's the same. I'm using I won't lie to what's who calling and to what's who are actually doing mercury and under depending the size of it. So we're using what's been used by the industry. So it's well, it's it's it's saltwater tested and it's a very solid Japanese product. Yeah, the calling, the engineering around it, it's amazing. The core is another design. But if you're building 50 or $100,000 gas outboards and some of them, not some, all of them, let's say, I mean, makes troubling here.

41:18 From the 90 horsepower to the 140, it's the same base, but they change the exhaust and they change the mapping. If you need to change everything and go back to a new technology by the time that you're up and running, you're dead. They're too big. So what they will do once they're ready and they feel that they can get a big segment, I think they will buy a company that's already exist. It's going to be interesting here. Then starting from scratch, I've been investing a lot of millions of dollars, but it's not only about the money. It's about the time invested to create what we add and fighting the patterns and having the right chains of suppliers because 95 percent of the parts that we are using, except the calling, are parts built by our own tooling.

42:03 So the battery pack, we own the tooling, but we have a pack maker. So we're using Octillion is one of the 10th biggest pack maker in the world. So is packaging a battery made for the size of the casing we need? That certification is on by us. The tooling is ours and we have patents for the BMS and the information that drives around the system. So it's same thing with the motor using a very large electric motor company after using their off the shelf product, they've manufacture a motor that will cool and be able to last on saltwater for us. So by having all those things been put together for the past 13 years now and got now 20,000 hours of testing.

42:47 Yeah, plus that it was expensive to do the McLaren engineering testing for two years. So just the cabinet to withdraw 700 or 700 volt, 24 hours a day, because you have to mimic the power of a battery nonstop for 24 hours a day. It's long story short, it's much easier to to get something built by someone like Vision Marine instead of building it from scratch. Mercury tried it. They've worked on it and they've started developing a five horsepower, a 10 horse. And then we start pushing out on our end and we did build a race boat to show to the world that we were better than Jaguar, Jaguar, the car company. Yeah, you can go on YouTube and check it.

43:28 It's pretty cool what they did. 2020 21. They did. They took the e-pace electric race car motor and put that thing on a small 20 feet boat one seater. So we cannot even have your glass of water in that boat. It's very small. It's a formula one boat. Very, very small. They put the technology on it. Spend millions of dollars in two years of development with a crazy story around it and hit 88 miles per hour with maybe four, 30 seconds or one second. Yeah. One minute. Yeah. And when we saw that. It's cool. But I don't think Jaguar is going to build motors and I don't think Jaguar is going to build outboards or both. But let's do a team building project. So we start working on that.

44:11 Start poking around because I cannot drive fast boats anymore because the board doesn't allow me that for liabilities and other reasons. Of course. Yeah. So I reached out to Sean Torente, who's actually the world number one race boater. I raised driver and he's racing for Mercury and other big team Abu Dhabi and Qatar and he's a former he's the man on the planet. He's the man. Yeah. And he says, Sean, I want you to we will build the boat, the 32 footer boat that could be used with twin motors race on the gas division. And I want the same boat to be pushed by our same motors that we sell to consumer.

44:52 Yeah. And show to Jaguar. We're going to be better than them. And there's a documentary on Amazon Prime and also on YouTube. It's a 24 minute documentary from it's called Can't Stop Won't Stop. So you got the full story. We've built that. So when we did the first boat, it was a pleasure boat. No top. Six passengers, 32 footer race cat. And we did 109 miles per hour. Shattering the world record by John. Yeah. And like almost like a school project. It's in a regular boat like in a boat that you was a production boat to receive gas tanks in it. And we. And when we did that, then Sean says, you know, we're going to take a real race boat now with capsule that could actually be racing with Mercury engines on weekends. Remove the engine, put electric ones on and we can be on the real circuit with real professional. No one can say you're doing.

45:47 You're taking a and we that's part of the documentary. You'll see that. And with that one, we did 116 miles per hour. And as we speak, we've been challenging everyone. And with the same boat, it's faster with electric engine than with Mercury gas 300. Yes. And I'm challenging anyone in the world that say that there's something powerful on the electric because there's always a news flavor of the month. We've got the most powerful boats. Yes, please. We want that. We want the companies. And that it's showing that it's the right way. And there's probably some way I want someone to shatter that record because it's going to show to the industry that it's good. Now we see that every car manufacturer as a model, that's very powerful. And it's for early adapters.

46:29 But on the on the car side, there's no more early adapters. It's it's a right. It's a community. And yes, on the both side, it's still early adapters. And I would say that the bike 2030, it's a 20 billion business. It's a growing business. And as we speak, I don't see who's bigger than us. I don't. There's and we need someone bigger than us. And we want that. And the market is huge. And we want to be sure that we see at least five, six percent of electric boats and marinas when we're traveling or one. That'd be cool. I've been driving electric boats in the ocean here in California. So I go to Huntington Beach or Laguna Beach and and I can have a very decent connections with dolphins and turtles or and moonfish because they're ready. There's no vibration. And I don't know why they love just the fact that you're moving like a little bit. And it's like, yes, yes. And the connection you mentioned earlier, it's what even in Florida, when you're driving that thing in the canal, you see manatees very, very because they don't we have to be cautious. Yes, of course.

47:42 It's it's it's you're connected to the nature and being on the water. That's the most beautiful part. That's why people have so close because you've got that way. And you don't. And the only thing you hear on the electric boat is the water touching the hole. And that's amazing. I'm I'm getting excited. This is to be on one of them to understand that when you're in the market, that's the thing to do. And but it's not made for everyone. It's not a boat that you will move and do four hundred miles on a day. But no matter no matter what, no one does four hundred miles on a boat. Yeah, exactly. And when you're a voter, you need when you know when you do three hours of voting at 40 miles per hour, the only guy who enjoys it, it's the it's the captain. People in the boat cannot have a drink, a glass of water or something to eat. It's yeah, you're still on the ocean. You're still on the water. It's bumpy. And it's all that. Right. Yeah.

48:31 Yeah. For sure. For sure. It's it's not made for that. Like you don't see big 53 footer trucks on the highway electric. It's made to move people for from three passengers to seven passengers. It's not made now. It's not there yet, but it's made for people for family boaters boats between 18 to 30 feet and enjoying weekends for a full day of boating. And after it's overnight, the night you have to get that in charge in the next morning, you're back on the water. Love it. I think that's phenomenal. I think it's I think it's the future. I hope to see more in Canada more and more as we as we go along. I hope to be one of those owners at some point the next five years. And yeah, I think this will be it'll be a lot of fun.

49:12 Before we go, you know, we talked about breaking the record, but you've also been involved, you know, as as we talk about EVs and the environmental benefits, you've also been involved with a conservation organization that's a friend of the podcast. We've had, you know, four oceans on huge talk a lot a little bit about that relationship and how they used your boats. Yes, I was in 2023, the year that we decided to build the second boats to do 160 miles per hour. My father and my mother and I used to actually go sailing in the wintertime. So they were taking their sailboats from like Champlain driving down to Florida and then crossing to the exuma for the winter. And I did that for the past 20 years with them. And I love quite I like I like talking with people and having a good time on boats.

49:58 So they were a little bit sad because we were not close to them and they were not close to the kids. Because we were working hard on building that race boats. And I said to Patrick, let's do a crazy challenge while we're doing the fastest one. Let's do the one that can has the more more more range in the world. So Pat took a 26 feet pound to add a huge solar panel canopy on its structure with enclosures because we're Canadian. So we know when it's raining, it's windy. So we said to the inlas, you're good to do the Hudson River from New York and you're able you know the route straight to Florida and let's bring it to Florida and we'll put Starlink on it, a coffee machine on it. And you have to drop the anchors and the solar panel will get that in charge during the day and you can move.

50:45 Well, but you a tracking device people could follow you on YouTube and Instagram during your trip. You did it in your cellboat many times at seven miles per hour. Let's do it because most of the places you cannot go fast on that river. And for challenging purposes and stunt, we started from statue of liberty in New York. We dropped the pontoon there with a friend of mine who owns electrified Marina. Rick and he's a dealership that sells a lot of electric boats and he's a place to go in your net in that area electrified Marina. So we dropped my father in law, 65 years old back then retired chief of police with my mother in law.

51:25 Drop that thing there. Put our CBO on it. Chief vending officer with the GoPro drones and we'll see you in Florida and they made it and when the boat right. It was a sponsor given to for ocean because the deal with for ocean is when we were building was selling electric boats. We were giving X amount of dollar per electric boat sold and also for rentals and funny fact is as as this morning, my kids are distributing bracelet from for ocean door to door for and we're giving a dollar back to each rentals from our location in California for people who are coming down with a bracelet to our rental operation to sponsor and give more love.

52:06 People don't know all for ocean is being proactive. There's like cleaning waterways. Alex is a rock star superstar. Amazing. And we need we need hundreds of those guys. They're doing an amazing job. And so it became when we arrived in Boca, we gave them the pontoon. It was was a very luxurious pontoon. I thought at first that I could use it to put, I would say remove garbage or floating plastic bottles from the ocean. I think I think it didn't make sense for them to use that. So they use it more like an office on the water because that's from the back to the front. A huge solar panel like very nice in glass with windows that you can remove. And then you can use that thing if it's raining because keep in mind, they may they were sleeping and moving from that boat with the solar.

52:57 The the for the day that they did that in a week and a half or two weeks slowly driving down. So they did 13,000 miles on that electric boats. Along the coastal, like not just in the river, but along the coastline, like along the eastern US is that like they're they were hugging the coast as they go through. Yeah, from statue Liberty down to Boca and got told a few weeks ago that they sold it and they're using the funds to actually grow the business because it was it was too, too beautiful. And it's better for them to have a skier for different type of boat for what they're using a bar. They needed a barge.

53:38 Yes, that's the thing. It was it was more described to them as a barge when they saw that thing coming to their their places. Well, and you're not putting your mother-in-law father-in-law on a barge to come down. It was and I could use that pontoon anytime in the day because it was covered. It was nice. Beautiful. Beautiful. And we have a great relationship with for ocean and we need more people like them. Yeah, absolutely. I think we had them on the pot. We had Alex on the podcast couple of years ago, talked about it's just how he does everything the way he, you know, in powers coastal communities, not just in Florida, but all over the world and, you know, pays them a living wage and they get to you.

54:21 They get to their own management within their own area, like in Bali and Haiti and all over the place. I just think what they're doing is absolutely fantastic. So it's no doubt in my mind why it made sense for you guys to partner with them and to help them out. I think it's I think it's fantastic. Listen, Alexander, this has been phenomenal. Like this has been eye opening. It's gotten me very, very excited about where boating is going in the future. And I think it's just it's a very helpful thing when you think about people who want to be more environmentally friendly and they're in the boating community. And I just feel like it's a it's a it's the most logical next step for people who want to who want to do wonderful boat. So we're boating with their families and stuff. I think it's I think it's great.

55:09 I want to thank you for taking time. I know you're very, very busy man. So I appreciate you taking the time. Love to have you back. Talk more about electric boats and where we're going to go in the future with them. You know, down the line and it'd be a lot of fun. Thank you for having me today. But I would like to invite you on a boat for the next interview. So you could actually and the people could actually have the touch and feel of it. So I think it would be amazing. If you want to do it, they deserve that. And they're going to have a better understanding. And that's my job. I need to educate people. That's what I've been doing for the past 15 years now. 14 years I've been educating people. And I think the best thing to do is to help them out. And I think that's what I've been doing for the past 15 years. I've been doing a lot of work with people and I think the best way is using people like Alex or yourself. People who have the touch of what we're doing because you understand it. So if I could put you on a boat with your team, it would be a would be honored to do that. And you're twisting my arm here. This is what I'm doing.

56:10 We're going to be able to chat. It'll be a lot of fun. Yeah, that would be awesome. Thank you so much Alexander. Thank you for joining us on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Isn't it great to be able to know that when you go out boating that as you using your boat, as you're going from one place to another, you're not going to hear the motor. You can actually speak to your family. You can actually speak to the people in there and enjoy a quiet time on the ocean. Not only that, but think about how that reduces the amount of time you're going to be able to do that. How that reduces noise underwater, just not having that noise of a motor. I think that's really important. I think there's a lot of benefits that I was on the mentioned in this episode and it's just a new way of voting. It's going to be something that's going to happen more and more. And even though it doesn't take up a huge amount of the, I guess the recreational boating fleet, but it will eventually. And I think it'll overtake it as we get closer and more understanding about electric boating is had by everyone. So I want to thank Alexander for his time.

57:08 I want to thank Alexander for joining us. You can go to Vision Marine technology. So visionmarinetechnologies.com. And of course, yeah, we'd love to hear from you what you what you think of the of this type of boating. Have you do have an electric motor on your boat? If not, what what entices you to do something in the future like that? I get an electric boat and what are your concerns? I'd love to hear them. Hit me up on the socials with links in the show notes. And of course, if you want to support the show, go to speakupforblue.com. For slash patreon will put vision Marines and Alexander's connect us connections with social media connections in the show notes as well. We want to thank Alexander. We want to thank you for joining us on today's episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.