EP-20RS Outboard
“The good thing about the electric propulsion, and I’ve experienced this with my Tesla too, is that you just press the accelerator and it goes… My Elco outboard has very good performance all along the speed range.”
This is a special boat for our family. It’s a molded fiberglass boat built in 1958 and my in-laws bought it when they got married to use on their honeymoon, so it’s very special to us. I just renovated the boat and got her back into ship-shape.
I’ve been very interested in electric propulsion for a while, I’m very much a do-it-yourselfer and I like electronics. I just took delivery of a Tesla model 3. This boat had a two-stroke engine on it originally that was noisy, and I wanted to replace it. The new four-strokes are very heavy and expensive.
The engine performs great, it was super easy to put on and hook up.
We go out on the local lakes and rivers here in Fort Wayne, Indiana. We use it kind of like a little pontoon boat and just putt-putt around. However, it was strictly on me to make the decision to go electric, we don’t have any restrictions around here about gas motors on the rivers or anything like that.
The good thing about the electric propulsion, and I’ve experienced this with my Tesla, too, is that you just press the accelerator and it goes—so the performance is really there. And my Elco outboard has very good performance all along the speed range. You can go from slow to really fast and it’s the same amount of quiet.
All in all, I love the engine. It has given a new lease on life to a really special old boat.
EP-20RS Outboard
