It seems no powersport niche is off the cards when it comes to electrification. Rumblings about the first electric Sea-Doo have been nonstop since the brand said back in 2021 that it'd have an electric PWC on the market by the end of 2026. The brand did nothing to dispel the idea that it was on track, as it patented a wireless charger for an EV PWC along with patents for an electric hydrofoil surfboard.
Now, the project is officially dead in the water, according to Watercraft Zone, or at least on pause.
Sea-Doo confirmed that it won't deliver an electric PWC this year, and plans to deliver one in the future remain uncertain. At the recent global Sea-Doo dealer conference, the global product strategy manager for Sea-Doo, Cristian Comtois, said, "We did a lot of testing on an electric (watercraft), and our main result brought us to think that this is not the solution for the water."
The problem is that PWCs and electric powertrains don't gel, and not for the obvious reason behind why you don't make toast in the bath. It's a drag that we won't get an EV Sea-Doo anytime soon, both figuratively and literally.
According to Comtois, "There is not a lot of riding range, plus you get range anxiety actually because you see the remaining battery percentage going down. There is limited ability to recover energy. It's not like a car where you can recover energy when braking or going downhill. On a watercraft, there is always drag (friction), and that uses a lot of energy."
It's almost as though Sea-Doo put the cart before the horse. The BRP-owned company was experimenting with an electric model before the 2021 announcement that it would develop an EV, as dealers were shown a prototype as early as 2019. The problem is, even after years of testing, the technology just can't overcome the physics of the problem to make an EV PWC a viable option. But all hope for an EV PWC isn't lost.
On the topic of whether Sea-Doo will produce an electric PWC in the future, Comtois said, "I think the question is when, not if (an electric model comes). When the technology will improve, we might start seeing a shift towards electrification, but right now this project is on pause."
To be clear, the question of when there'll be a production PWC on the market was answered when Taiga started delivering its Orca P2 in 2023. But nothing about Taiga's journey has been easy, and the manufacturer almost succumbed to financial pressures back in 2024. So the only thing that's certain about EV watercraft dominance is that the path to the top will be hard-fought.
