Arc Boats
- Former SpaceX engineers are building a commercial electric speedboat called the Arc One.
- The boats, designed to reach speeds of 40 miles per hour, will sell for $300,000, the company said.
- All of Arc’s employees other than its CEO previously worked at SpaceX.
- See more stories on Insider’s business page.
A team of former SpaceX engineers is building $300,000 commercial electric speedboats.
California startup called Arc said has raised $4.25 million in seed funding to build a 475-horsepower electric speedboat, Bloomberg first reported on Thursday.
Arc plans to sell its first model, Arc One, by the end of the year, the company confirmed to Insider. The 24-foot boat is designed to reach top speeds of 40 miles per hour and its 200 kWh battery should last between three and five hours between charges, Arc said on its website.
You can reserve one of Arc’s electric boats by putting down a fully refundable $1,000 deposit, according to Arc’s website.
Arc Boats
Arc CEO Mitch Lee, who is the only Arc employee to not work for SpaceX, told Bloomberg that “the amount of carryover between rocket-building and boat-building is actually surprisingly high.”
Lee founded the startup with college friend Ryan Cook, he told Bloomberg.
After leaving his job at Boeing in 2013, Cook spent seven years working for Elon Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, as an engineer, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Arc Boats
Kevin Wollscheid, Arc’s lead manufacturing engineer, previously worked at SpaceX for six years, per his LinkedIn profile.
Audrey Gaither, a mechanical engineer at Arc, and Robert Binkowski, Arc’s vehicle engineer, both worked at SpaceX as engineers before moving to the electric boat startup, according to their LinkedIn profiles.
Arc is facing competition from Swedish startup X Shore, which started selling electric boats in March for $329,000. Another Swedish company, Candela, also makes all-electric speedboats that can fly above the water.
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