Candela C-8 Electric Boat Smashes World Record, Covers 483 Miles In 24 Hours

Swedish boat company Candela is not only taking electric mobility to the seas but is also breaking world records along the way. The Candela C-8 set a new world record last week, by covering 420 nautical miles, or 483 miles in 24 hours over the in-land waterways around Stockholm.

The boat set sail from the Frihamnen port in the capital city on an overcast day, elevating above the water thanks to its deployable hydrofoils – wing-like structures under the boat that boost performance and efficiency – and dual counter-rotating propellers. The C-8 is Polestar powered, using the same 69 kilowatt-hour battery pack from the Polestar 2 electric fastback.

Thanks to the Polestar battery, Candela claims the C-8 is the longest-range electric boat on the market by a wide margin, and probably among the more expensive ones with an eye-popping starting price of $395,000 before taxes and fees in the Americas. There's also a C-8 Polestar edition that starts at a whopping $450,000.

The Swedish brand claims that its boat has a range of 66 miles on a single charge and a cruising speed of 23 miles per hour. For the record run, the sailers cycled through 45-minute runs at a top speed of 31 mph between charges, for 24 hours. In a separate video, the brand explained that the efficiency is one kilowatt-hour per nautical mile at 23 mph.

For the world record, the C-8 used DC fast charging thanks to Northvolt’s mobile Voltpack battery and Plug charger.

Total electricity cost was $127, whereas a conventional fossil fuel-powered boat would have cost $1,483, according to the brand. A regular boat would have emitted around 3,935 pounds of carbon dioxide over 483 miles. The C8 emitted 99 percent less carbon dioxide – just 38.3 pounds, according to the standard Swedish electricity mix.

The previous record holder was a 740 horsepower electric vessel built by Canadian Marine electrification company Voltari Electric, which traveled 91 miles on a single change from Florida to the Bahamas.