The Guardian article glosses over a few things that are actually interesting about this ship:
- It's made out of aluminum instead of steel. The resulting weight savings make it a bit more efficient. That's something this shipping yard specializes in.
- Because it is going to run in shallow water on the river Plate, it doesn't actually have propellers but a water jet propulsion system.
The project of getting this ship from Tasmania to South America is also going to be interesting as well. It can't do it under its own power; it's designed for a ~50km crossing, not a trans Pacific/Atlantic journey. At the time, they were thinking tug boats.
I'd wager they will use what is known as a 'Float-on/float-off' ship for transport... it's rather common actually-
It's a ship with a very low deck line that partially submerges itself, with the center of the deck underwater deep enough so the other vessel can 'float on' over the deck. They they pump the water back out, raising the deck above water and the boat on top it just rests flat.
If it’s anything like the electric ferries that cross the Öresund beween Helsingborg and Helsingør, they grab charge while they’re unloading and loading at each terminal:
Each trip consumes approximately 1,175 kWh, which is nearly the same amount a residential home consumes in a month. In each port is a tower with a robot arm that connects the charging cable automatically every time the ship comes to the dock. The system charges 10.5 kV, 600Amp and 10.5MW. The batteries have a total capacity of 4,160 kWh, which means that we always have a surplus of electricity if for some reason we cannot load during a stop or if the transit takes more time than usual.
In Helsingör the ferries charge for approx. 6 minutes and in Helsingborg the ferries charge for approx. 9 minutes. This is enough to suffice for the journey across the strait.[1]
Side note: you can also charge your car on board from the boat’s batteries.
> The ship... will travel between the ports of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay. The two cities are 60 kilometers apart, a distance it is expected to travel in 90 minutes.
> Direct-current charging stations will be installed at each port... A full charge is expected to take just 40 minutes.
> The project of getting this ship from Tasmania to South America is also going to be interesting as well.
Indeed. As I remarked last time (1) "it's long distance and can be rough seas" They get to pick a good time of year, but either route goes past places known for storms and shipwrecks in the winter (June to September). Would you choose to go via Cape Agulhas or around Cape Horn?
It would be annoying to be ready to deliver the ship, but due to schedule over-runs, to have to wait 4 months for the weather to improve.
apparently, 40MWh of capacity is enough to travel 40 nautical miles. The distance between Tasmania and South America is around 6,500–7,500 nautical miles.
I've taken one of the electric roll-on/roll-off ferries that cross from Denmark to Sweden over the Øresund strait. Zero fumes, zero vibration, incredibly quiet. Awesome to see this tech being used for longer crossings.
It took a bit of digging but it looks like the ship can operate for 90 minutes without recharging:
> ... the batteries will power eight axial-flow water jets driven by permanent magnet electric motors. These will be able to keep the ship going for 90 minutes before needing to be recharged.
> The ship’s permanent home will be the Rio de la Plata estuary, where it will travel between the ports of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay. The two cities are 60 kilometers apart, a distance Hull 096 is expected to travel in 90 minutes. Direct-current charging stations will be installed at each port and will draw energy from the two countries’ grids. A full charge is expected to take just 40 minutes.
I’m curious if it would have made sense to build it as a hydrofoil. There are a couple of electric boat companies that use that to reduce drag, wake and improve comfort on-board. The software to keep things level is non-trivial, but I don’t know if it adds a lot of complexity to the build.
It looks like they could have mounted at least 100 solar modules on top, if not 200. That's 600-1200kwDC, given its flat, at 800kwp/kWh, that means for an hour of peak production, after losses, would do at least 300kwh for the smaller size and 600kwh for the larger size. If each trip is around 1150kwh and takes longer than an hour, more than half of the power required could be generated. As solar modules are solid-state devices, seems short sighted to not slam a system on the roof. PV modules are literally just glass sandwiches with wires and DC to DC battery chargers are very efficient. The weight would also be partly counter-acted by using the modules as the skin for the roof.
Your math is far off. If you put 60kW (STC rating) of PV panels as quantity 100 of 600W premium panels on top, in Uruguay, it'll produce somewhere between 6800 to 8100 kWh per month if the panels are perfectly exposed to sun from sunrise to sunset.
If we say it's 7500kWh a month that's something like 250 kWh of production per day, which is a tiny drop in the bucket compared to the amount of energy needed to charge the ferry.
I would like to know its price. Here in the Azores Islands there was a project to replace an ICE ferry with an electric one but they couldn't agree on the price with the boat builders. It went up to as much as 35 million Euros but it ended up being cancelled as that, apparently, wasn't enough for a ferry that can do 1-1.5 hour crossings with a dozen cars or so.
Size of the ferry will make a big difference. A small ferry is going to cost a lot less than this 225 car ferry. My quick reading is the Azore ferries hold about 8 cars; that's a totally different class of vehicle.
My local ferry system has an electrification project[1]; the current active project is three 160-car hybrid-electric ferries for a total cost of $714.5 million. A NZ shipbuilder is probably more competitive than a US shipbuilder, and details matter....
This article says $200M [2] which is a lot lower than I expected, given it's a one-off and larger (I think) than the WSDOT 160-car ferries.
I had no idea that would be the cost of a ferry albeit old. We have a massive problem with transportation between islands due to lack of ships/investment. For example, out of the 9 islands only three have daily voyages and right now even that isn't happening as one boat broke down and another is away on maintenance. We could do we a couple even old ones.
The main issue I saw here with the electric ferry was that 90% of the installed generation in the islands uses HFO so we would be charging the ferry with a fuel that pollutes more than the diesel used to run it.
It should take around 50 hours to fully charge its batteries under ideal conditions. That is 5 - 10 days realistically. I guess it's impractical considering that it will ferry across the River Plate.
Any flat surface on a ship that is designed for electric should be covered in flexible solar panels.
Why do this if it can’t fully charge the ship? To offset the costs of charging the ship at port, to provide longer range by providing a lower voltage power source for 12V DC charging (cell phones, iPads, 5w LED lights).
So the commenter is correct, she needs panels and the fact that this isn’t part of the launch shows that they were more interested in being first than practical.
I’m not a sparky but would you need inverters if the panels are just for charging batteries? On the other hand, there is probably already inverters onboard to provide AC power to passenger power points.
Does anyone have a feel for how heavy the weight of an equivalent oil(?) driven ship would be? It has the big number for the weight of batteries, but I've got nothing to compare against.
"In 2020, Buquebus originally commissioned Incat to deliver a new ship to use dual-fuel propulsion, capable of operating on liquefied natural gas and diesel, with around 400 tonne of main engines, 100 tonne gearboxes, 100 tonne cryogenic fuel tanks and 100 tonne fuel."
Spent a few months down in Hobart sussing out an antarctic science degree- really cool marine industry nexus down there with world leading research, all of the antarctic operations, and this stuff. Definitely the most nautical feeling city in Australia
The Guardian article glosses over a few things that are actually interesting about this ship:
- It's made out of aluminum instead of steel. The resulting weight savings make it a bit more efficient. That's something this shipping yard specializes in.
- Because it is going to run in shallow water on the river Plate, it doesn't actually have propellers but a water jet propulsion system.
Fully charged did a video on the construction of this ship early last year: https://fullycharged.show/episodes/electric-ferry-the-larges...
The project of getting this ship from Tasmania to South America is also going to be interesting as well. It can't do it under its own power; it's designed for a ~50km crossing, not a trans Pacific/Atlantic journey. At the time, they were thinking tug boats.
I'd wager they will use what is known as a 'Float-on/float-off' ship for transport... it's rather common actually-
It's a ship with a very low deck line that partially submerges itself, with the center of the deck underwater deep enough so the other vessel can 'float on' over the deck. They they pump the water back out, raising the deck above water and the boat on top it just rests flat.
They do this for some oil rigs as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy-lift_ship#Semi-submersib...
I wonder if they could load batteries into it instead of cars and passengers?
I assume it’s too hard to be worthwhile, and probably still wouldn’t get the range.
The relocation was the big question on my mind.
The other is: when will they charge? Does this ship not run at night?
If it’s anything like the electric ferries that cross the Öresund beween Helsingborg and Helsingør, they grab charge while they’re unloading and loading at each terminal:
Each trip consumes approximately 1,175 kWh, which is nearly the same amount a residential home consumes in a month. In each port is a tower with a robot arm that connects the charging cable automatically every time the ship comes to the dock. The system charges 10.5 kV, 600Amp and 10.5MW. The batteries have a total capacity of 4,160 kWh, which means that we always have a surplus of electricity if for some reason we cannot load during a stop or if the transit takes more time than usual.
In Helsingör the ferries charge for approx. 6 minutes and in Helsingborg the ferries charge for approx. 9 minutes. This is enough to suffice for the journey across the strait.[1]
Side note: you can also charge your car on board from the boat’s batteries.
[1] https://www.oresundslinjen.com/about-us/sustainability
1 reply →
Also: installing the charging infrastructure. Special docking requirements for the non electric Spirit Of Tasmania were a big problem.
Q:
> when will they charge?
A:
> The ship... will travel between the ports of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay. The two cities are 60 kilometers apart, a distance it is expected to travel in 90 minutes.
> Direct-current charging stations will be installed at each port... A full charge is expected to take just 40 minutes.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/electric-boat-battery-ship-ferry
1 reply →
Thanks for the video link, it's way more informative than the original article.
> The project of getting this ship from Tasmania to South America is also going to be interesting as well.
Indeed. As I remarked last time (1) "it's long distance and can be rough seas" They get to pick a good time of year, but either route goes past places known for storms and shipwrecks in the winter (June to September). Would you choose to go via Cape Agulhas or around Cape Horn?
It would be annoying to be ready to deliver the ship, but due to schedule over-runs, to have to wait 4 months for the weather to improve.
1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45844832
Article quotes `40 megawatt-hours of installed capacity.` - Surely this can get you pretty far from Tasmania to South America.
apparently, 40MWh of capacity is enough to travel 40 nautical miles. The distance between Tasmania and South America is around 6,500–7,500 nautical miles.
7 replies →
The drag on a vessel is orders of magnitude larger than the drag on a car.
I've taken one of the electric roll-on/roll-off ferries that cross from Denmark to Sweden over the Øresund strait. Zero fumes, zero vibration, incredibly quiet. Awesome to see this tech being used for longer crossings.
It took a bit of digging but it looks like the ship can operate for 90 minutes without recharging:
> ... the batteries will power eight axial-flow water jets driven by permanent magnet electric motors. These will be able to keep the ship going for 90 minutes before needing to be recharged.
> The ship’s permanent home will be the Rio de la Plata estuary, where it will travel between the ports of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay. The two cities are 60 kilometers apart, a distance Hull 096 is expected to travel in 90 minutes. Direct-current charging stations will be installed at each port and will draw energy from the two countries’ grids. A full charge is expected to take just 40 minutes.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/electric-boat-battery-ship-ferry
Some cool pics of construction components:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-02/incat-launches-worlds...
I’m curious if it would have made sense to build it as a hydrofoil. There are a couple of electric boat companies that use that to reduce drag, wake and improve comfort on-board. The software to keep things level is non-trivial, but I don’t know if it adds a lot of complexity to the build.
Calling it the largest electric ship seems wrong or at least requires extra specificity compared to nuclear aircraft carriers.
The propulsion of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers isn't electric... it's driven directly from the steam produced by the reactors.
It looks like they could have mounted at least 100 solar modules on top, if not 200. That's 600-1200kwDC, given its flat, at 800kwp/kWh, that means for an hour of peak production, after losses, would do at least 300kwh for the smaller size and 600kwh for the larger size. If each trip is around 1150kwh and takes longer than an hour, more than half of the power required could be generated. As solar modules are solid-state devices, seems short sighted to not slam a system on the roof. PV modules are literally just glass sandwiches with wires and DC to DC battery chargers are very efficient. The weight would also be partly counter-acted by using the modules as the skin for the roof.
Your math is far off. If you put 60kW (STC rating) of PV panels as quantity 100 of 600W premium panels on top, in Uruguay, it'll produce somewhere between 6800 to 8100 kWh per month if the panels are perfectly exposed to sun from sunrise to sunset.
If we say it's 7500kWh a month that's something like 250 kWh of production per day, which is a tiny drop in the bucket compared to the amount of energy needed to charge the ferry.
I would like to know its price. Here in the Azores Islands there was a project to replace an ICE ferry with an electric one but they couldn't agree on the price with the boat builders. It went up to as much as 35 million Euros but it ended up being cancelled as that, apparently, wasn't enough for a ferry that can do 1-1.5 hour crossings with a dozen cars or so.
Size of the ferry will make a big difference. A small ferry is going to cost a lot less than this 225 car ferry. My quick reading is the Azore ferries hold about 8 cars; that's a totally different class of vehicle.
My local ferry system has an electrification project[1]; the current active project is three 160-car hybrid-electric ferries for a total cost of $714.5 million. A NZ shipbuilder is probably more competitive than a US shipbuilder, and details matter....
This article says $200M [2] which is a lot lower than I expected, given it's a one-off and larger (I think) than the WSDOT 160-car ferries.
[1] https://wsdot.wa.gov/construction-planning/major-projects/fe...
[2] https://www.ro.com.uy/2025/10/16/nuevo-barco-china-zorrilla-...
As a comparison, in my banana country they spent €7.7m on a beat up old Greek ICE ferry that isn't even up to local safety standards[0].
Compared to that, €35m or so for a new modern vessel doesn't sound outrageous.
[0] https://www.morski.hr/jadrolinija-za-7-7-milijuna-eura-kupuj...
I had no idea that would be the cost of a ferry albeit old. We have a massive problem with transportation between islands due to lack of ships/investment. For example, out of the 9 islands only three have daily voyages and right now even that isn't happening as one boat broke down and another is away on maintenance. We could do we a couple even old ones.
The main issue I saw here with the electric ferry was that 90% of the installed generation in the islands uses HFO so we would be charging the ferry with a fuel that pollutes more than the diesel used to run it.
I hope that such a flat roof will be covered in solar
It should take around 50 hours to fully charge its batteries under ideal conditions. That is 5 - 10 days realistically. I guess it's impractical considering that it will ferry across the River Plate.
If it can charge while sailing there is no downside. At least as long as a substantial percentage of total charge can come from the integrated solar.
2 replies →
Any flat surface on a ship that is designed for electric should be covered in flexible solar panels.
Why do this if it can’t fully charge the ship? To offset the costs of charging the ship at port, to provide longer range by providing a lower voltage power source for 12V DC charging (cell phones, iPads, 5w LED lights).
So the commenter is correct, she needs panels and the fact that this isn’t part of the launch shows that they were more interested in being first than practical.
7 replies →
Probably more efficient to keep inverters, panels etc on land.
I’m not a sparky but would you need inverters if the panels are just for charging batteries? On the other hand, there is probably already inverters onboard to provide AC power to passenger power points.
1 reply →
You would be consuming fossil fuels to charge a ship when the sun is giving you energy for free.
At least capture some of that to charge some batteries or extend the length of your voyage.
10 replies →
more efficient to leave surface unused?
5 replies →
Does anyone have a feel for how heavy the weight of an equivalent oil(?) driven ship would be? It has the big number for the weight of batteries, but I've got nothing to compare against.
700-ish tonnes - it's in the wikipedia article:
"In 2020, Buquebus originally commissioned Incat to deliver a new ship to use dual-fuel propulsion, capable of operating on liquefied natural gas and diesel, with around 400 tonne of main engines, 100 tonne gearboxes, 100 tonne cryogenic fuel tanks and 100 tonne fuel."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Zorrilla_(ship)
Google supplied me with this original spec: https://incat.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Mini-Spec-13...
Same ship, originally specced to carry tens of thousands of liters of oil. No overall displacement number, oddly.
Spent a few months down in Hobart sussing out an antarctic science degree- really cool marine industry nexus down there with world leading research, all of the antarctic operations, and this stuff. Definitely the most nautical feeling city in Australia
250 tonnes of batteries…
Previously, 55 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45844832
Discussion on a different article, about the same boat.
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Ugly as hell as far as ships go. Ugly as hell like almost all new cars, trains and buildings.