BUYER’S GUIDE ELECTRIC OUTBOARDS
Electric outboards have been around for many years, but they have either been too low powered or their lead acid batteries have made them too heavy to lift in and out of a small tender, so petrol outboards have remained the engine of choice.
The development of lightweight lithium batteries has changed all this, making electric outboards a practical alternative to petrol. With this in mind, we tested 12 models whose all-up weight, or the weight of their individual components, did not exceed the 14-17kg of a 2.5hp petrol outboard.
The options today are trolling motors with separate batteries – so called because they were mainly used as auxiliary slow-speed power for anglers, and integral-battery motors built for dinghy propulsion. These are the options a sailor will be looking at when thinking about changing to an electric outboard.
Trolling motors are still popular for low-speed applications, as they are simple and cheap, but they do need a separate 12V battery. The integral battery motors are sophisticated units designed to give you more speed and greater range for a given power in a small boat, though for any 3-4m boat, the hull speed will limit how fast you can realistically go with any motor unless you start planing. They often include displays showing speed, range at a given speed, and percentage of battery capacity remaining, but these features come with a higher price tag.
The trolling motors and integral battery models in our test were similar in weight and both come in at around the same total weight as a 2.5hp petrol engine.
THE TEST
We took a selection of motors available on the market, and tested them in two situations, firstly on a Frib 275 folding RIB on the Lymington River to reproduce the situation of getting out to your boat in the tender. We then put them on a 4m skiff on the Thames, to see how
