This autumn, Stockholm residents won't have to make hours-long journeys by car or train between Ekerö (a popular suburb) and central Stockholm (home to the historic City Hall).
Instead, they can board a 30-passenger ferry and complete the journey in half the time, while also helping to cut down on carbon dioxide emissions.
This is no ordinary diesel ferry. It's the P-12, an electric ferry that hovers just above the water's surface, much like the landspeeder from “Star Wars.”
Built by Swedish company Candela, which has been perfecting the technology since 2016, the P-12 uses hydrofoils to lift the boat above the water's surface, reducing drag and the amount of energy needed to operate it. “The hydrofoil system cuts energy consumption by 80% compared to fossil fuel-powered vessels,” says Gustav Hemming, vice chairman of the regional executive board in Stockholm, which is responsible for sea-related public transport. “This number is obviously huge, and a game-changer for water transport.”
Not only is it better for the environment, but 2022 study A study by Stockholm’s KTH Royal Institute of Technology found that the P-12 emits 97.5% less carbon dioxide than diesel boats – but also reportedly delivers a smoother journey, which Hemming describes as a “magic carpet” experience.
“By flying over the water, the P-12's hull is lifted above the friction from the water,” he says. That means less noise, a stable ride, and none of the diesel fumes that put some people off boating. “The foil technology works like an airplane's wings in that it provides lift when it flies over the water and creates a pressure difference,” Hemming says.
Stockholm won't be the only city with these futuristic boats. Candela's P-12 will soon be operating here as well Berlin, GermanyAnd eight ships are being built for Saudi Arabia's $1.5 trillion project NEOM.Megacity Project” For the very wealthy, 2025 delivery date,
Candela representatives were also in New York last August, and they Test ride Sailing out of New York Harbor and meeting potential customers. Could this mean that a floating ferry will soon be coming to Manhattan? Hemming is tight-lipped, saying only that they are “in talks with a number of private operators around the world, including New York.” And “if” that happens, hypothetically, the P-12 trip between Hoboken Terminal and Chelsea Market would take less than three minutes, compared to the current half-hour trip by car or train. The electric ferry trip from Staten Island to Lower Manhattan, which currently takes about 25 minutes, could be completed in 11 minutes.
Electric ferries – which run on battery packs charged on land rather than diesel – aren’t exactly new. Norway launches world’s first electric ferry service In 2015. and Finland's ferry system is gone Fully electric in 2017,
But the past few years have seen a boom in ferry innovation, with fully electric fleets emerging in countries Spain, India, Portugal, Denmark, ThailandAnd new zealandThe electric ship market is worth around $4.3 billion globally this year. projected to increase By 2032, that amount will rise to nearly $17 billion, according to Fortune Business Insights.
The US has been slow to join the electric ferry revolution. The country's first electric ferry was launched in Gee's Bend, Alabama. In 2019And it hasn't really captured the country's imagination. Several other cities and states are working to launch e-ferries, including Washington state, which (due to repeated delays) has yet to introduce e-ferries. unexpected costs in the past few years) may finally get its first electric fleet in 2028,
New York has faced similar problems getting its electric ferry initiative off the ground, even though it is a prime candidate for this technology. The city has set an ambitious goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions up to 80% by 2050And Niagara Falls, just seven hours north, offered a sample of what's possible by launching its first all-electric tourist boats back in in 2020,
Signs of what’s to come began to emerge in 2022 when New York Cruise Lines announced a partnership with Swedish company Green City Ferries. Together they will build the Beluga24, a high-speed, zero-emission, low-wake ferry capable of carrying 147 passengers and 28 bicycles, which will debut in New York Harbor. By the spring of 2024But the launch date came and went, and no boats arrived.
“We were a little early in New York,” says Hans Thornell, founder and CEO of Green City Ferries. (Representatives of New York Cruise Lines declined to comment.) He says there were problems with the harbor’s charging infrastructure, and it was becoming difficult to obtain batteries that “met Made in USA regulations.”
Thornell mentions the hundred year old Jones Act, Which stipulates that all boats transporting cargo between American ports must be manufactured in the US. “Our Swedish battery supplier Echendia recently set up a production facility in Washington state,” he says. “Now we're just looking for an investor who is interested in emission-free transportation on water.”
Not everyone is excited about the prospects. Joan Sammon, founder of a boutique oil and gas consulting firm, says most proponents of “eco-friendly travel options” like to pretend that this technology is “being built by union workers in Michigan. Far from this reality, the battery industry that US and global consumers depend on for their ‘green battery technology,’ including ferries, is almost entirely controlled by China, a communist country with a surprisingly poor record of upholding environmental standards.”
Even after ensuring that all parts and manufacturing are ethically sourced, there still remains the matter of cost. Patrick Finn, a former marine technology analyst who now works as a harbormaster in Newport, Maine, says countries like Denmark, Sweden, and Norway are leading the electric ferry race because they have “one of the longest-running taxation schemes for air pollution.” Their governments “support cutting-edge innovation through grants and encourage companies to take risks and experiment,” he says.
That's beginning to change, at least in some parts of the U.S. In California, the San Francisco Bay Ferry, a public transit passenger ferry service that carries about 8,000 passengers each weekday, recently obtained a license. $11 million grant Loans have been obtained from the Federal Transportation Administration (FTA) to build high-speed electric boats.
“This program will help the United States catch up with the rest of the world in terms of reducing maritime greenhouse gas emissions,” says Tom Hall, the company’s director of operations. Although the cost of building the first fleet won’t be low — he hopes to commercially launch SF Bay Ferries’ first electric ship in 2026 — Hall expects that in the long run, the electric ships’ operating costs “will be less than our existing diesel fleet.”
This may not be true if the technology gets more sophisticated. Last summer, Norwegian tech company Zebuz MF EstelleThe world's first fully autonomous emission-free yacht. With marine radar, LiDAR and marine-specific AIS transponders, the yacht is piloted by an “AI Captain” algorithm, says Øyvind Smøgeli, co-founder and CEO of Zebuzz.
The AI captain is trained using an advanced simulator or “virtual world” that covers a wide range of operational scenarios. Its navigation skills are “safer and more efficient than the average human captain,” Smogeli told The Post. “More than 80% of all accidents at sea are caused by human error, so the 'AI captain' doesn't have to be perfect to save a lot of lives.”
In Denmark, another groundbreaking e-ferry, called Ellen, is setting the bar even higher. Introduced in 2019 (At a cost of $23.6 million, about 40% more than conventional ships), the Ellen is able to travel a greater distance than most electric ferries – 22 knots – and is capable of carrying 200 passengers and 30 cars. It also has a lot more power, 50 times the battery capacity of Tesla. And according to one BBC reportThis alone could reduce CO2 emissions by 2,000 tonnes every year.
But Hemming stresses that bigger isn't always better, especially when it comes to electric ferries. He says most ferries built for intra-city or coastal transport are capable of carrying 300 passengers or more, but usually don't fill all their seats.
“In Stockholm, ships typically carry 10% of their capacity,” he says. “So fuel and money are spent moving a lot of empty seats around.” The P-12 is only big enough to carry 30 passengers, so it's also more economical to build, so cities can afford a larger fleet of ships. “Think of the P-12 as a city bus that runs on water,” says Hemming.
Sooner or later, they say, electric ferries are coming to cities like New York, and they're going to change the way people use public transportation. “It will be a paradigm shift in the maritime industry, just like cars and buses replaced boats in transportation,” Hemming says. “Now it's the reverse — we'll see a return to transportation on our waterways.”
