Electric Boat and Ship Market Trends

The driving factors of the electric boat and ship market include factors like increased maritime tourism and increased seaborne trade, as 80% of the world's trade is carried by ships. As the global economy is dependent on the shipping market, the electric boat market is expected to play a bigger role in this sector as environmental causes have increasingly come to the forefront in this sector. Electric and hybrid types of ships cause less emission and save the environment from getting polluted more.

Moreover, growing government support and shipowners' willingness to promote the usage of electric boats and ships to reduce emissions is likely to help the market growth during the forecast period. For instance:

• In May 2022, The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment of Finland launched a development program for a sustainable maritime industry. The program aims to accelerate the adoption of low-carbon technologies and digital solutions for the maritime industry in the country. The program will be carried out in the cooperation with Ministry of Transport and Communications, Business Finland, Finnish Industry Investment, Finnvera, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and Finnish Marine Industries Federation. The progarm will run till the end of 2023.
• In April 2022, the Government of the Netherlands announced a ban on all fossil fuel powerd boats in the cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam and all the national parks in the country, by 2025. The country has also announced plans to convert all the fleet of leisure boats operating in the country to electric boats.
• In April 2021, South Korea invested USD 33 million to build the first testbed for green marine vessels.
• The 2030 Green Ship-K Promotion Strategy, a central part of South Korea's plans to achieve carbon-neutrality by 2050, specifically targets the advancement and wider use of low-carbon ship technology, including hydrogen fuel cells and propulsion systems. The initiative has set a goal of reducing the country's shipping greenhouse gas emissions by 40% in the next 25 years and 70% by 2050.
• In January 2021, a group of thirteen companies across the entire shipping elctrification chain launched a new project named as ' Current Direct'. The project aims to reduce the cost of battery-electric propulsion systems in shipping and build an 'Energy as a Service' platform. The project is financed by European Commission with a grant of EUR 12 million (USD 12.36 million).
• In 2020, the South Korean government announced a USD 870 million initiative to encourage the development of eco-friendly shipping to reduce pollution caused by the country's marine sector.
• In 2019 Swedish Shipowners' Association ( Svensk Sjöfart) announced to phase out all the fossil fuel powered ships in Sweden by 2045.

Additionally, international regulations, like the International Maritime Organization, deployed the global sulfur cap in January 2020. Under this regulation, ships, mainly commercial ships and marine vessels, may require low sulfur fuels to operate outside the emission control areas, which may propel electric ship adoption.

The market is also driven by the entry of new startups which manufacture and sell eletcric boats espaecially in geographies like Europe. For instance,

• In September 2022, Swedish electric boat startup X Shore launched X Shore 1 an electric speedboat in two configurations: Top and Open and three specifications: Utility, Performance and Premium. The X Shore 1 has top speed of 30 knots, cruising speed of 20 knots, range of 50 nautical miles at lower speeds and is powered by a single 63 kWh battery pack. The X Shore 1 is available for delivery from the second quarter of 2023.

Thus the confluence of all the aforementioned factors is likely to induce healthy growth in the electric boat and ship market over the next five years.