The Seine Alliance is based out of the Paris Yacht Club at Port de Grenelle, Paris. Didier Spade is the founder and CEO; he started operating on the Seine almost 30 years ago.
This river tourism developer in Paris, has partnered with Renault to utilize used EV batteries to power its electric tour boats. The batteries will come from Kangoo and Fluence.
They have 30 KW/h battery capacity on board (15 KW/h for each of the two electric pods).
Two E-Tech Polish electric motors are 10 KW each. Batteries allow 3 hours cruising at a speed of 5 knots (the legal speed limit is 7 knots). The charger can charge in 4-5 hours which is enough as most of our cruises are at lunch time or dinner time.
A few years back, they have launched another electric boat with lead-acid batteries. Passengers enjoyed very much visiting Paris without noise and fumes.
There are several reasons to use electric boats rather than gas- or diesel-powered ones-
- They have zero direct emissions so there are no exhaust fumes.
- They’re quieter and therefore more comfortable,
- and electricity typically costs less than fossil fuels.
In this case, the boats are using repurposed EV batteries, so they are recycling them instead of having to buy new ones.
Reference- Clean Technica, Futurism, Seine Alliance website