[HN Gopher] Worlds largest electric ship launched by Tasmanian b...
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Worlds largest electric ship launched by Tasmanian boatbuilder
Author : aussieguy1234
Score : 127 points
Date : 2026-01-01 10:29 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| NooneAtAll3 wrote:
| I hope that such a flat roof will be covered in solar
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| Probably more efficient to keep inverters, panels etc on land.
| phinnaeus wrote:
| I'm not a sparky but would you need inverters if the panels
| are just for charging batteries? On the other hand, there is
| probably already inverters onboard to provide AC power to
| passenger power points.
| servo_sausage wrote:
| No, you need some kind of DC converter to regulate voltage,
| but no inherent requirement to go to AC. Lots of small
| camping and off grid systems do that.
|
| Although at the scale of a one off boat i would think it's
| cheaper to use the more widespread systems for bigger grid
| connected panel installations; so you are back to
| inverters.
| NooneAtAll3 wrote:
| more efficient to leave surface unused?
| servo_sausage wrote:
| Same reason EVs rarely have solar panels; adds weight and
| complexity, making it more expensive than putting the
| panels somewhere less wet and salty.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| ... and doesn't add significant charge.
|
| > The surface area of a standard car simply isn't big
| enough to hold the sheer volume of solar panels that
| would be needed to capture a meaningful amount of energy
| from the sun.
|
| https://octopusev.com/ev-hub/why-dont-electric-cars-have-
| sol...
|
| > there just isn't enough space on top of cars to make a
| meaningful contribution to the charging needs of the
| battery
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/billroberson/2022/11/30/why-
| doe...
|
| The same must be true of a ship.
|
| Put the larger solar panel installations at the places
| where the vehicles charge.
| scraptor wrote:
| More efficient to spend the same amount of money on
| shoreside panels with lower installation costs.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Talk to a marine engineer about the overhead (equipment,
| training, emergency procedures, etc.) of adding a small-
| scale solar plant to all the things that they've already
| got to deal with on a ship.
|
| And recall that this bridge - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
| /Francis_Scott_Key_Bridge_(Balt... - will need a multi-
| _billion_ dollar replacement, because the tiny engineering
| staff of a huge freighter could not diagnose and correct a
| surprise electrical failure. Within the _maybe_ 3 1 /2
| minutes between the initial fault, and when the collision
| became physically inevitable.
| jeltz wrote:
| Do you have solar panels on top of your head? If not why do
| you leave that space unused? Space being there is one of
| the worst possible reasons. That bloats designs and makes
| them expensive to build and maintain.
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| Yes, it is more efficient to install it on land. The
| installation will be cheaper, maintainance will be cheaper
| and the panels will last longer.
| reactordev wrote:
| You would be consuming fossil fuels to charge a ship when the
| sun is giving you energy for free.
|
| At least capture some of that to charge some batteries or
| extend the length of your voyage.
| WJW wrote:
| The energy is not free, since the solar panels cost money
| and don't last forever. Even at optimistic prices, it's
| still something like 0.03 USD/kWh. Install them on a boat
| and they have to deal with constant vibrations, humid
| conditions, seagulls shitting all over them, etc etc etc.
|
| I used to work on ships and almost everything constantly
| breaks down without constant maintenance. I bet it would be
| much cheaper to put the solar panels on land and charge the
| ship when it's in port.
| teiferer wrote:
| That may all be true, but there are other benefits that
| could make it worth it. For example it could be, in
| theory, self-sufficient forever if something else breaks
| down making it unable to maneuver. Then you can at least
| sit in the middle of the sea and have your heating and
| cooking and desalination working until you repair the
| propulsion.
| padjo wrote:
| You already have MWh of batteries for that.
| reactordev wrote:
| No you don't because after a few days broken down, they
| are drained without solar.
| reactordev wrote:
| I sailed around the world on a sailboat with solar. I
| know. It's still better than none at all.
|
| The energy is free. To capture it costs a little bit of
| money.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| There's something funny to me about taking your
| experience with solar on a small sailboat and
| extrapolating this to a commercial ferry that would need
| a very large solar installation that's funny to me.
| Something tells me the experience isn't transferable.
| reactordev wrote:
| The point isn't to power the main drive, the point is to
| preserve energy used elsewhere on the ship.
|
| My experience sailing and dealing with vessels from 30ft
| to 180ft give me a perspective that you probably don't.
|
| Providing solar panels along the roof would give the ship
| a few KWh of power that would otherwise be drawing from
| the main batteries. This would extend the range of the
| ship by 5-10%.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| For how much cost? The range of the ship is already
| handled well by the batteries. An extra 5-10% isn't going
| to meaningfully add value nor reduce fuel costs. There's
| no way to recapture the capital expenditure such solar
| panels would require.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Adding range reduction turn around time. Ship is making
| money while it is moving, not while it's charging. Also
| why roro batteries make most sense.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| The 5-10% number is completely invented. I doubt it's
| half as high as 5%, but until and unless someone does the
| maths, there's no point in speculating.
|
| The math has been done many times for solar panels on the
| roof of cars, and it's not worthwhile. Ships are not the
| same though.
|
| At any rate, it's inevitably far more sensible to put a
| larger solar panel + battery installation at a fixed
| place on land, and charge vehicles from that.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Where are you getting your 5-10% numbers from?
|
| The ship battery is 40,000 kwh and uses at least 10,000
| kwh per crossing, with 10 minutes to recharge. A handful
| of kwh are negligible because this isn't a sailboat.
|
| The electricity sector in Uruguay has 98% renewable power
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Catamarans are perfect for scaling up solar like this.
| Even 40ft is enough to power it entirely off sol at hull
| speed.
| reactordev wrote:
| [delayed]
| cush wrote:
| Why don't electric cars and trucks have solar panels then?
| reactordev wrote:
| Oh you mean like the Aptera or the Hyundai Ioniq 5? They
| do have solar panels built in. Prius Prime as well. These
| aren't powerful enough to charge the main drive though,
| not enough surface area and voltage.
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| But why not put it on a Tesla if it will be so much more
| efficient than putting the same panels on your roof of
| your house and charge your Tesla with that?
| reactordev wrote:
| Because they want to sell you the cheapest car possible
| for the most money possible, sell you a home charging
| unit, sell you solar shingles, sell you a new power plant
| for your home to go with those shingles. They are not in
| the business of making their cars efficient, only making
| the cash flow efficient.
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| What stops you from slapping a solar panel on the roof if
| it is the most efficient way to charge an EV?
| reactordev wrote:
| the fact that many new electric cars do have solar
| panels, I fail to see your reasoning. A solar panel isn't
| going to provide you with enough energy to drive. Merely
| enough energy to trickle charge your batteries.
|
| Now, should you run out of charge during your drive, you
| simply have to wait a while and you'll have enough to get
| you to a charging station. Or you can walk, taxi there.
| On an ocean or channel crossing, you don't have that
| luxury and must rely on other ships if you run out of
| charge. The point I'm making is that any electric vehicle
| should incorporate solar panels into the design to
| minimize it's dependence entirely on the batteries and
| can extend it's time doing what it's designed to do.
|
| As solar panels advance and the wattage increases, this
| will be more and more important as it will open up new
| avenues for transportation. Like the solar LSA plane
| "Solar Impulse" that can fly indefinitely.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > the fact that many new electric cars do have solar
| panels
|
| Not true. Not many at all, in fact vanishingly few. I
| don't know of any EV currently on sale where it is
| standard. Because it's not practical. See comment above.
|
| > Now, should you run out of charge during your drive,
| you simply have to wait a while and you'll have enough to
| get you to a charging station
|
| Or not, as it adds a few miles of range per day of
| charging. You're far better off using the V2L capability
| of another EV to bring the charge to you.
|
| > As solar panels advance and the wattage increases, this
| will be more and more important
|
| No, it won't. Even at perfect panel efficiency , there
| just isn't enough room on a car roof to charge a car in
| reasonable time. Solar panel improvements won't do it.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46454978
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46455027
|
| > Like the solar LSA plane "Solar Impulse" that can fly
| indefinitely.
|
| You can already drive an EV indefinitely, by mounting a
| much larger surface area of solar panels on your house,
| and charging your car from that regularly, with or
| without an intermediate battery that allows you to charge
| the car overnight. This is proven and practical, unlike
| solar panels on the car. For solar panels on a car, the
| math is that it just never will be practical.
|
| The math: https://youtu.be/7L1_zvqg73Q?t=590
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| Nothing stops anyone from doing this, except that it's
| ineffective. See comments here
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46455027
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46454978
|
| This guy's impractical homebrew rig gets "20 to 30 miles
| per day" when unfolded and the car is not in motion. That
| unfolding is necessary as there just isn't enough surface
| area on a car roof to make it worthwhile.
|
| https://www.dartsolar.com/
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/TeslaLounge/comments/194ajsm/my_
| tes...
|
| It's still far more practical to 5x or 10x the number of
| solar panels, mount them on a fixed structure like a
| house roof, where they never have to be folded or moved
| around, and park the car next to it, to charge.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| The Aptera vehicle is vapourware and likely always will
| be. It's not a practical vehicle that is on sale.
|
| Solar roof on Ioniq 5 and Prius is an option, not
| standard. And it's rare. In fact, I've never seen it or
| even heard of it until I looked up what you were saying.
| And for the Ioniq 5 solar roof, it seems that it's not
| even offered at all in some countries.
|
| The Prius one is "Offered as an option on the range-
| topping XSE Premium trim". Far from standard. This roof
| literally adds up to 4 of miles of range on a good day.
| (1) So it's a high-end gimmick that has niche use at best
| on a car, when compared to a fixed solar / battery
| installation situated where the car is parked.
|
| It won't be any more useful on a boat.
|
| 1) https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/13w
| 5cb1/o...
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| Read again. I said you can put the panels on land where it
| is 100x easier and cheaper to install them vs on a ship.
| Solar panels are not fossil fuel.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| I doubt it but it deff goes well with roro batteries too.
| red75prime wrote:
| It should take around 50 hours to fully charge its batteries
| under ideal conditions. That is 5 - 10 days realistically. I
| guess it's impractical considering that it will ferry across
| the River Plate.
| reactordev wrote:
| Any flat surface on a ship that is designed for electric
| should be covered in flexible solar panels.
|
| Why do this if it can't fully charge the ship? To offset the
| costs of charging the ship at port, to provide longer range
| by providing a lower voltage power source for 12V DC charging
| (cell phones, iPads, 5w LED lights).
|
| So the commenter is correct, she needs panels and the fact
| that this isn't part of the launch shows that they were more
| interested in being first than practical.
| servo_sausage wrote:
| It's not a long range vessel, but it should have a fairly
| long service life.
|
| Additional weight and complexity on a one off boat would be
| more expensive than a seperate much more standard solar and
| battery system on land. And you might be able to get
| additional value out of selling electricity from an
| oversized storage.
|
| It's not sensible to draw your system boundaries around the
| boat by itself; there is significant terminal
| infrastructure; and even grid electrical infrastructure to
| consider.
| reactordev wrote:
| I disagree entirely about complexity. It's not complex at
| all.
|
| I don't draw a boundary around the boat. I see a missed
| opportunity to power non-drive electronics from a
| renewable source such as solar.
| cush wrote:
| It's possible adding panels could reduce the range because
| they're heavy and so high up on the ship.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Weight won't matter much (you typically only accelerate
| it once, and the additional drag is small), it is just
| that the surface area is so small relative to what's
| needed that it just doesn't move the needle.
| arijun wrote:
| From the current top comment on this thread:
|
| > It's made out of aluminum instead of steel. The
| resulting weight savings make it a bit more efficient.
| That's something this shipping yard specializes in.
|
| According to that person, weight does indeed matter.
| reactordev wrote:
| Solar panels are also made from aluminum frames or can be
| flexible in plastic sheets. The weight is negligible.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yes, the weight of the hull, which is immense. Compared
| to that some solar panels probably weigh about as much as
| the paint. It's still ship, not an aircraft.
| notahacker wrote:
| Also, thin film solar panels that can be stuck to a flat
| roof likely weigh less than the small portion of the
| battery capacity (250 tonnes of batteries total) they
| could theoretically substitute for.
|
| If you were optimising for mass rather than ease of
| maintenance you'd probably put them on (despite the
| relative lack of surface area meaning you still needed to
| recharge at each end)
| aziaziazi wrote:
| Drag is huge for boats, especially in seas and oceans
| that have tides and currents. Far more than a car... that
| also have to continuously burn oil to keep their speed,
| even on freeways.
| jacquesm wrote:
| See my other comment...
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Pintegrated panel design,cost, and maintenance can be more
| expensive than the puchace price of electricity. Putting
| pannels on regular ground is vastly more efficient.
|
| This is kinda like saying everyone should wear solar hats
| to offset their home electric bill.
| teiferer wrote:
| If it can charge while sailing there is no downside. At least
| as long as a substantial percentage of total charge can come
| from the integrated solar.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > At least as long as a substantial percentage of total
| charge can come from the integrated solar
|
| Yes, but that's highly doubtful. It doesn't work for EVs
| with panels on the car's roof - you don't get significant
| charge from it. It's far more practical to put the panels
| on a larger, fixed structure where the vehicles charges
| daily.
|
| Sources e.g.
|
| https://octopusev.com/ev-hub/why-dont-electric-cars-have-
| sol...
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/billroberson/2022/11/30/why-
| doe...
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/ykwd89/
| w...
| red75prime wrote:
| When Argentine gets enough solar over-provision, ship
| owners might make money by charging during negative solar
| prices.
| t0lo wrote:
| Spent a few months down in Hobart sussing out an antarctic
| science degree- really cool marine industry nexus down there with
| world leading research, all of the antarctic operations, and this
| stuff. Definitely the most nautical feeling city in Australia
| DemocracyFTW2 wrote:
| Ugly as hell as far as ships go. Ugly as hell like almost all new
| cars, trains and buildings.
| trebligdivad wrote:
| Does anyone have a feel for how heavy the weight of an equivalent
| oil(?) driven ship would be? It has the big number for the weight
| of batteries, but I've got nothing to compare against.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Google supplied me with this original spec:
| https://incat.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Mini-Spec-13...
|
| Same ship, originally specced to carry tens of thousands of
| liters of oil. No overall displacement number, oddly.
| sparklysoup wrote:
| 700-ish tonnes - it's in the wikipedia article:
|
| "In 2020, Buquebus originally commissioned Incat to deliver a
| new ship to use dual-fuel propulsion, capable of operating on
| liquefied natural gas and diesel, with around 400 tonne of main
| engines, 100 tonne gearboxes, 100 tonne cryogenic fuel tanks
| and 100 tonne fuel."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Zorrilla_(ship)
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| The Guardian article glosses over a few things that are actually
| interesting about this ship:
|
| - It's made out of aluminum instead of steel. The resulting
| weight savings make it a bit more efficient. That's something
| this shipping yard specializes in.
|
| - Because it is going to run in shallow water on the river Plate,
| it doesn't actually have propellers but a water jet propulsion
| system.
|
| Fully charged did a video on the construction of this ship early
| last year: https://fullycharged.show/episodes/electric-ferry-the-
| larges...
|
| The project of getting this ship from Tasmania to South America
| is also going to be interesting as well. It can't do it under its
| own power; it's designed for a ~50km crossing, not a trans
| Pacific/Atlantic journey. At the time, they were thinking tug
| boats.
| tedk-42 wrote:
| Article quotes `40 megawatt-hours of installed capacity.` -
| Surely this can get you pretty far from Tasmania to South
| America.
| chii wrote:
| apparently, 40MWh of capacity is enough to travel 40 nautical
| miles. The distance between Tasmania and South America is
| around 6,500-7,500 nautical miles.
| amelius wrote:
| For comparison, a wide body airliner needs ~0.15MWh to
| travel 1 nautical mile.
| eesmith wrote:
| A wide body airliner doesn't carry "up to 2,100
| passengers and 225 vehicles".
| verandaguy wrote:
| It also does so in a medium where the main drag force is
| induced by air rather than water, which is probably a
| comparably significant factor
| potato3732842 wrote:
| It also needs to beat up that air enough to make the
| resultant forces overcome gravity acting on the airliner
| whereas the ship just gets to float there.
|
| Apples to orages.
| eesmith wrote:
| Yup.
|
| Or to structure it a the earlier comment: for comparison,
| it takes me about 0.000065 MWh to cycle 1 nautical mile.
|
| That's a couple of apples.
| nandomrumber wrote:
| You also aren't doing so while carrying 2100 passengers
| sms 225 cars, I imagine.
| nineteen999 wrote:
| Plus they are going to get very waterlogged cycling that
| nautical mile.
| nandomrumber wrote:
| Some dedicated cyclists will cycle in any weather.
| amelius wrote:
| And a maglev train?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maglev
| rcxdude wrote:
| I would be extremely surprised if the ship were designed to
| use 100% of its capacity in one way of its intended route.
| jacquesm wrote:
| The drag on a vessel is orders of magnitude larger than the
| drag on a car.
| merek wrote:
| Thanks for the video link, it's way more informative than the
| original article.
| wepple wrote:
| The relocation was the big question on my mind.
|
| The other is: when will they charge? Does this ship not run at
| night?
| pjc50 wrote:
| Also: installing the charging infrastructure. Special docking
| requirements for the non electric Spirit Of Tasmania were a
| big problem.
| robin_reala wrote:
| If it's anything like the electric ferries that cross the
| Oresund beween Helsingborg and Helsingor, they grab charge
| while they're unloading and loading at each terminal:
|
| _Each trip consumes approximately 1,175 kWh, which is nearly
| the same amount a residential home consumes in a month. In
| each port is a tower with a robot arm that connects the
| charging cable automatically every time the ship comes to the
| dock. The system charges 10.5 kV, 600Amp and 10.5MW. The
| batteries have a total capacity of 4,160 kWh, which means
| that we always have a surplus of electricity if for some
| reason we cannot load during a stop or if the transit takes
| more time than usual._
|
| _In Helsingor the ferries charge for approx. 6 minutes and
| in Helsingborg the ferries charge for approx. 9 minutes. This
| is enough to suffice for the journey across the strait._ [1]
|
| Side note: you can also charge your car on board from the
| boat's batteries.
|
| [1] https://www.oresundslinjen.com/about-us/sustainability
| leoh wrote:
| 10.5MW on demand is wild
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| So in the Fully Charged video about this ship, the
| shipyard CEO just casually mentions the customer is
| looking at having 40 MW at each end.
| phire wrote:
| It's not that big when you consider many DC car chargers
| can deliver 0.25 MW.
|
| So _"only"_ 42 car sized chargers for a massive boat,
| there are probably some massive Tesla superchargers sites
| that approach that.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| Q:
|
| > when will they charge?
|
| A:
|
| > The ship... will travel between the ports of Buenos Aires,
| Argentina, and Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay. The two
| cities are 60 kilometers apart, a distance it is expected to
| travel in 90 minutes.
|
| > Direct-current charging stations will be installed at each
| port... A full charge is expected to take just 40 minutes.
|
| https://spectrum.ieee.org/electric-boat-battery-ship-ferry
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Full charge is 40 but the charge for each journey is 6 / 9
| minutes.
|
| Big difference, since I imagine the turnaround time on a
| similar ICE ferry would be less than 40 minutes but more
| than 10.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| Indeed, the turnaround time necessary for unloading
| passengers, and loading the next lot is likely sufficient
| to keep charge.
| mk_stjames wrote:
| I'd wager they will use what is known as a 'Float-on/float-off'
| ship for transport... it's rather common actually-
|
| It's a ship with a very low deck line that partially submerges
| itself, with the center of the deck underwater deep enough so
| the other vessel can 'float on' over the deck. They they pump
| the water back out, raising the deck above water and the boat
| on top it just rests flat.
|
| They do this for some oil rigs as well.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy-lift_ship#Semi-submersib...
| 3eb7988a1663 wrote:
| That first image on the page is incredible.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > The project of getting this ship from Tasmania to South
| America is also going to be interesting as well.
|
| Indeed. As I remarked last time (1) "it's long distance and can
| be rough seas" They get to pick a good time of year, but either
| route goes past places known for storms and shipwrecks in the
| winter (June to September). Would you choose to go via Cape
| Agulhas or around Cape Horn?
|
| It would be annoying to be ready to deliver the ship, but due
| to schedule over-runs, to have to wait 4 months for the weather
| to improve.
|
| 1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45844832
| lostlogin wrote:
| I wonder if they could load batteries into it instead of cars
| and passengers?
|
| I assume it's too hard to be worthwhile, and probably still
| wouldn't get the range.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| I think that makes a ton of sense, esp since you can retrofit
| diesel-electric ferries.
|
| Skips expensive DC charging infrastructure, but does require
| to buy two batteries which can get expensive. Over time vpp /
| market arbitrage can pay for battery itself tho.
|
| Also sacrifices some of the cargo capacity. I.e. for
| wellington - picton that's about 4 rail cars or 6 semi
| trailers.
|
| Edit: also smaller turnaround time.
| bogzz wrote:
| I wonder if ballast is more effective on a lighter ship.
| cfn wrote:
| I would like to know its price. Here in the Azores Islands there
| was a project to replace an ICE ferry with an electric one but
| they couldn't agree on the price with the boat builders. It went
| up to as much as 35 million Euros but it ended up being cancelled
| as that, apparently, wasn't enough for a ferry that can do 1-1.5
| hour crossings with a dozen cars or so.
| senko wrote:
| As a comparison, in my banana country they spent EUR7.7m on a
| beat up old Greek ICE ferry that isn't even up to local safety
| standards[0].
|
| Compared to that, EUR35m or so for a new modern vessel doesn't
| sound outrageous.
|
| [0] https://www.morski.hr/jadrolinija-za-7-7-milijuna-eura-
| kupuj...
| cfn wrote:
| I had no idea that would be the cost of a ferry albeit old.
| We have a massive problem with transportation between islands
| due to lack of ships/investment. For example, out of the 9
| islands only three have daily voyages and right now even that
| isn't happening as one boat broke down and another is away on
| maintenance. We could do we a couple even old ones.
|
| The main issue I saw here with the electric ferry was that
| 90% of the installed generation in the islands uses HFO so we
| would be charging the ferry with a fuel that pollutes more
| than the diesel used to run it.
| toast0 wrote:
| Size of the ferry will make a big difference. A small ferry is
| going to cost a lot less than this 225 car ferry. My quick
| reading is the Azore ferries hold about 8 cars; that's a
| totally different class of vehicle.
|
| My local ferry system has an electrification project[1]; the
| current active project is three 160-car hybrid-electric ferries
| for a total cost of $714.5 million. A NZ shipbuilder is
| probably more competitive than a US shipbuilder, and details
| matter....
|
| This article says $200M [2] which is a lot lower than I
| expected, given it's a one-off and larger (I think) than the
| WSDOT 160-car ferries.
|
| [1] https://wsdot.wa.gov/construction-planning/major-
| projects/fe...
|
| [2] https://www.ro.com.uy/2025/10/16/nuevo-barco-china-
| zorrilla-...
| robocat wrote:
| > NZ shipbuilder
|
| Note that the shipbuilder from there article is based in
| Tasmania which is part of Australia. NZ isn't yet part of
| Australia.
| kitd wrote:
| Unless you're in Kazakhstan!
|
| https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/travel-
| stories...
| robocat wrote:
| Classic! I hope she told the officials that Kazakhstan is
| part of Russia.
| cush wrote:
| 250 tonnes of batteries...
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| Previously, 55 days ago:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45844832
|
| Discussion on a different article, about the same boat.
| TinyBig wrote:
| I've taken one of the electric roll-on/roll-off ferries that
| cross from Denmark to Sweden over the Oresund strait. Zero fumes,
| zero vibration, incredibly quiet. Awesome to see this tech being
| used for longer crossings.
| ihaveone wrote:
| It looks like they could have mounted at least 100 solar modules
| on top, if not 200. That's 600-1200kwDC, given its flat, at
| 800kwp/kWh, that means for an hour of peak production, after
| losses, would do at least 300kwh for the smaller size and 600kwh
| for the larger size. If each trip is around 1150kwh and takes
| longer than an hour, more than half of the power required could
| be generated. As solar modules are solid-state devices, seems
| short sighted to not slam a system on the roof. PV modules are
| literally just glass sandwiches with wires and DC to DC battery
| chargers are very efficient. The weight would also be partly
| counter-acted by using the modules as the skin for the roof.
| walrus01 wrote:
| Your math is far off. If you put 60kW (STC rating) of PV panels
| as quantity 100 of 600W premium panels on top, in Uruguay,
| it'll produce somewhere between 6800 to 8100 kWh per _month_ if
| the panels are perfectly exposed to sun from sunrise to sunset.
|
| If we say it's 7500kWh a month that's something like 250 kWh of
| production per day, which is a tiny drop in the bucket compared
| to the amount of energy needed to charge the ferry.
| bertil wrote:
| I'm curious if it would have made sense to build it as a
| hydrofoil. There are a couple of electric boat companies that use
| that to reduce drag, wake and improve comfort on-board. The
| software to keep things level is non-trivial, but I don't know if
| it adds a lot of complexity to the build.
| djoldman wrote:
| Some cool pics of construction components:
|
| https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-02/incat-launches-worlds...
| djoldman wrote:
| It took a bit of digging but it looks like the ship can operate
| for 90 minutes without recharging:
|
| > ... the batteries will power eight axial-flow water jets driven
| by permanent magnet electric motors. These will be able to keep
| the ship going for 90 minutes before needing to be recharged.
|
| > The ship's permanent home will be the Rio de la Plata estuary,
| where it will travel between the ports of Buenos Aires,
| Argentina, and Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay. The two cities
| are 60 kilometers apart, a distance Hull 096 is expected to
| travel in 90 minutes. Direct-current charging stations will be
| installed at each port and will draw energy from the two
| countries' grids. A full charge is expected to take just 40
| minutes.
|
| https://spectrum.ieee.org/electric-boat-battery-ship-ferry
| phibz wrote:
| Calling it the largest electric ship seems wrong or at least
| requires extra specificity compared to nuclear aircraft carriers.
| jbotz wrote:
| The propulsion of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers isn't
| electric... it's driven directly from the steam produced by the
| reactors.
|
| Edit: At least that's the case for US Nimitz-class aircraft
| carriers. Nuclear submarines apparently come in both types,
| with electric motors or direct drive steam-turbines, but I
| guess this ferry is bigger than any of those.
| Frenchgeek wrote:
| And they could have called it "Androids dream" but didn't....
| maelito wrote:
| How many km does it operate ?
|
| Edit : 50 km according to another comment
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