E-Lektra Marine – new joint venture ready to electrify 7 major sailboat brands

Two of the world’s largest sailboat builders – Groupe Beneteau and Fountaine Pajot Group – have set out to speed up adoption of electric propulsion in the industry by creating E-Lektra Marine, a 50/50 joint venture whose first customers will be seven major brands that represent 60% of the global market: Beneteau, Fountaine Pajot Sailing Catamarans, Fountaine Pajot Yachts, Dufour, Excess, Jeanneau and Lagoon.

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The goal of E-Lektra is to bring electric propulsion to 10% to 15% of the entire global sailing market by 2030, using a multi-tiered approach that offers:

• Electrification solutions – full electric or hybrid – for all sailboats from 9 to 24 metres (29 – 80 ft)
• A platform available for the whole boatbuilding industry
• A refit solution enabling current owners to switch to electric
• An optimized onboard energy management of all inputs and output: solar panels, motors, generators, ‘hotel load’ appliances and equipment, shore power connections
• Real-time monitoring through an easy-to-use display.

Two of the barriers standing in the way of mainstream adoption of electric propulsion for sailing boats and yachts are price and boat owners’ unfamiliarity with the technology. These are both complicated by the current situation of a fairly wide variety of propulsion manufacturers each selling relatively few units.

Bruno Thivoyon, Chairman of the Management Board, Groupe Beneteau, said “By combining our industrial expertise, we aim to establish open standards to make low-emission solutions simpler, more accessible and scalable.”

Offering a standardized system from E-Lektra to the large international customer base of these major boat brands brings critical mass and economies of scale that lower unit manufacturing costs.

It also makes it viable for E-Lektra to set up a  global network of approved and trained service partners. 

Makes electric simpler, more financially attractive

All of this matters not just for these seven major brands, but also for the hundreds of small boatyards who would like to offer electrification and the tens of thousands of boat owners who would like to look at a refit for their aging, inefficient, noisy and smelly diesel units.

Sailors love sailing over powerboats because of the fresh air and the sound of the wind and open seas. But today’s reality is that more than 99% of sailboats are equipped with an internal combustion engine that is needed for harbour manoeuvres or when there is no wind. Larger boats may also need to burn fossil fuel in a generator to cover part of the onboard energy needs.

Electricity is an attractive alternative, but sailing is a unique case in the energy transition. It combines the challenges of the automotive industry — silent propulsion with lower emissions — with the added challenge of housing people in the ‘vehicle’ for hours or days, sometimes weeks.

An electric car can be recharged at any time from a power outlet, but a sailboat must be able to produce, store and distribute its own energy at sea.

One of the advantages of electric propulsion is hydrogeneration, where the motor and propeller can turn into a generator that charges onboard batteries when the boat is under sail. Solar panels can be fitted on surface areas for more renewable energy. Larger boats, though, may still need to burn fossil fuel to help cope with onboard demands.

No matter where the energy comes from, a central challenge in a sailboat is not propulsion alone, but the overall management of energy use of everything – generation, battery storage, and distribution to navigation devices, galleys, water filtration and everything else a modern sailboat requires.

Shared platform open to entire boating industry

The leaders of the E-Lektra joint venture, Groupe Beneteau and Fountain Pajot Group, are among the sailing yacht builders who have already shown their commitment to fossil fuel free propulsion.

They now have data not just about use of the electric propulsion on the boats, but more importantly, on the boat’s whole electric ecosystem.

Groupe Beneteau has offered low-voltage electric solutions on under 12 metre sailboats for several years, while Fountaine Pajot deploys high-voltage hybrid solutions on catamarans longer than 15 metres (FEET). Their Aura 51 was winner of the Electric Sailboats category of the Gussies International Electric Boat Awards in 2024.

Read: Beneteau commits to electric at Cannes 2021

The technologies they have each been using are ready to scale up. Rather than continuing to develop independent systems, the two groups have chosen to co-build this E-Lektra shared platform, and open it up for everyone in the boating industry.

E-Lektra Marine will rely on a group of strategic partners that have already worked with Beneteau, FP or both: Alternatives Energies is a specialist in electric systems integration. Cirtem is an expert in energy conversion and management. EVE System focusses on battery pack design.

The overriding mission is to design and deploy a simple, accessible, low-emission sailing system that is competitive with the internal-combustion alternatives.

“Today, electrification is becoming essential; it must now be made accessible across the entire sailing market” says Mathieu Fountaine, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Fountaine Pajot. “The E-Lektra Marine joint venture with Groupe Beneteau shows that our industry can mobilize around the environmental objectives that we all share.”

Websites:
Beneteau  Fountaine Pajot  Dufour  Excess  Jeanneau  Lagoon.