EV boat maker Arc debuts a premium wake sport model for $258,000

Arc Boat Company began sales of its second electric boat model in just three years this week. The new $258,000 Arc Sport was designed for wake sports enthusiasts and follows the company’s earlier Arc One, a limited-edition luxury cruiser.

While the startup produced fewer than two dozen of those earlier boats, it is gearing up for continuous production of the new model, which it unveiled on Tuesday.

The 23-foot Arc Sport can carry up to 15 people at a time. It boasts a large battery with enough power to last for 4 to 6 hours and has a top speed of 40 miles per hour. At its price, it will compete with high-end models sold by traditional boat makers like Nautique, MasterCraft and Malibu.

Arc is one of a handful of promising startups aiming to electrify boating for sports and leisure including GM-backed Pure Watercraft, and Stockholm-based X Shore.

Traditional fuel-burning boats contribute to significant environmental problems including noise pollution, smog, and water pollution that is visible floating on the water around them.

Arc co-founder and CEO Mitch Lee said he spent his younger years water skiing, knee- and wake-boarding on the Sacramento–San Joaquin river delta near Stockton, California, and always noticed the stench of burning diesel at marinas and runoff from engines.

He wanted to do something to reduce the negative impacts of these sports and partnered with a former SpaceX engineer, Ryan Cook, who is the CTO of the company, to make that, and a “better boating experience,” a reality.

Arc’s leadership team also includes veterans of boating, automotive and transportation companies including Tesla, Rivian, Lyft, Brunswick and MarineMax, which helped the EV boat maker convince investors their designs and technology could work.

About $110 million in early-stage funding for Arc was raised from a mix of celebrity angel investors and venture capital firms including the NBA’s Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson, actor Will Smith and venture capital funds Andreessen Horowitz, Eclipse Ventures and Menlo Ventures among others.

Arc was able to design and start building its fully electric boats within a relatively short time frame, under three years, because the automotive industry had already invested years and billions of dollars building up a supply chain for components that go into electric vehicles, Lee said.

Buying components from trusted suppliers, rather than creating many from scratch like electric auto manufacturers Tesla and Rivian had to do in their earliest days, made it possible to get from concept to the dock in a few years rather than in a decade, the CEO emphasized.

Arc plans to begin deliveries of its new battery electric Arc Sport to customers this year.