The Journey of the Arc One

We’re proud to announce the final delivery of our groundbreaking first boat, the Arc One. It’s been a rewarding ride: in just over two years, our crew went from founding Arc to designing, manufacturing, testing, and delivering the most advanced electric boat on the water. As we conclude our first program, we wanted to reflect on the lessons we’ve learned along the way.

Charting new waters

While traditional gas boat manufacturers buy most of their parts off the shelf, we knew that approach wouldn’t work for us. To deliver a performant electric boat, our crew needed to vertically integrate across the Arc One — designing and manufacturing many components on the boat in-house. From the battery pack to the electrical system to the software, every inch of the Arc One was designed to function in harmony and optimize performance for our customers.

At nearly three times the capacity of the batteries in a Tesla Model Y, the Arc One’s custom 220 kWh batteries are a feat of engineering. “Nobody’s put a battery pack this large in a boat of this size before,” notes Arc cofounder and CTO, Ryan Cook. We structurally integrated these batteries into the hull of the Arc One, and the result was unprecedented EV performance for watercraft.

While most of our in-house innovation was planned, some of it came out of necessity. After multiple third-party gearboxes malfunctioned and delayed the delivery of the first Arc One, our team adapted to create our own. “Our boat simply had too much continuous power for outsourced gearboxes to handle,” says Cook. In just four months our crew engineered a custom gearbox that integrated seamlessly with the Arc One’s high-performance motor. This is innovation at an unheard-of pace, and it's only possible because of our motivated and talent-dense team.

Coast-to-coast electrification

Deliveries of the Arc One began in the spring of 2023 and the boats are making waves across the US. From the Pacific Northwest and down the coast of California, to New York, Florida, Texas, and more, the Arc One is ushering in a new era of electric boating — one with no fumes, quiet power, and minimal maintenance.

Internal enthusiasm aside, our success in electrifying the marine industry will ultimately be measured by our customers and their experience with our boats. We’re humbled by the reaction to the Arc One fleet. As our first customer put it:

“A ‘wow’ reaction to new technology is important, but the best measure of how impactful new technology will be in the long-term isn’t how much ‘wow’ it generates in the short-term, when people try it for the first time.

The best measure of long-term impact is how quickly people take it for granted: how quickly it just becomes part of their lives and they cannot imagine living without it — like smartphones, ridesharing, food delivery apps, and streaming video services. These were all a ‘wow’ at first. And then we quickly took them for granted and they became part of our daily lives.

The Arc One did both — and that is rare.”

Future impact

Through the Arc One program we’ve not only grown the experience of our team, but the size of our operations. We’ve gone from a small team of rocket and EV engineers, to a large crew of seasoned boat builders delivering the most innovative boats to hit the water.

And we’re just getting started. Our first mass-market model is coming (really) soon. Ready to hop aboard the future of boating? Don’t miss the next wave.