Candela, the company that designs and builds electric hydrofoil ferries, including the P-12, has announced that a crew from the company broke new ground by piloting an electric hydrofoiling Candela C-8 between Europe and North Africa. The voyage marked the first-ever intercontinental journey by an electric vessel, the company said.

“This week, we flew across continents—literally,” said Gustav Hasselskog, Candela’s founder and CEO.

When the C-8 is in operation, two hydrofoils lift the vessel above water, reducing drag and cutting energy consumption by 80%. The boat’s technology gives it the electric range needed to cross the Strait of Gibraltar—one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes—for the first time.

The C-8’s design facilitates such fast and inexpensive crossings, and “opens the door to entirely new, sustainable ferry routes across the Mediterranean,” Hasselkrog said.

The C-8 that made the crossing came with the Polestar Edition, a design collaboration with EV maker Polestar, which also supplies the batteries for the C-8. The Polestar Edition includes special upholstery and subtle design clues that emphasize innovation, the manufacturer said.

All C-8s feature a 69 kWh battery and DC fast charging. This gives the vessel a range of 57 nautical miles (66 miles, 106 km) at 22 knots (25 mph, 41 kph).

The storied Polestar name originated with Swedish motorsport team Flash Engineering, founded in 1996 by Jan “Flash” Nilsson. Volvo, which already had close ties to the racing team, acquired the Polestar brand in 2015.

The Europe-to-North Africa run is far from the first first for the C-8. In September, a crew from Candela set a world record by piloting a hydrofoiling Candela C-8 between Stockholm, Sweden and the Finnish autonomous region of Åsland. The journey was the first time an electric boat crossed the Baltic Sea.

The C-8 traveled from Stockholm to the Finnish autonomous region of Åsland and set a record in a 150-nautical-mile (163-mile, 277-kilometer) run.

“The aim was to demonstrate that zero-emission sea travel is not only possible today, but that foiling electric ships and boats are so much cheaper to operate than fossil-fueled vessels,” said Candela’s Hasselkrog.

There was some range anxiety during this trip, but it was not for the range of the C-8.

“The irony is that the photographer’s gasoline-powered chase boat had to refuel six times during the trip (to Åland and back), while we only charged three times,” said Hasselkrog.

Meanwhile, Candela’s P-12 electric ferry has now received multiple orders from major municipalities and operators. The P-12 went into service in Stockholm in November 2024, picking up passengers in Ekerö, an island of almost 12,000 inhabitants outside Stockholm, and reaching Stockholm’s City Hall, a 9-mile (15-km) jaunt, in just 30 minutes, 15 minutes faster than its diesel-powered counterpart while using 80% less energy to power the trip.

A fleet of eight P-12 ferries is on order by Saudi Arabia to make trips to Neom, the massive, unsustainable development that Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, the crown prince and authoritarian leader of Saudi Arabi, is creating there.

The P-12 is coming to Lake Tahoe to speed up north-south trips across the lake on the California-Nevada border.

The P-12 is also being deployed in Berlin to bring the travel time from the Eastside Gallery to Funkhaus down from as much as 26 minutes in traffic to 10 minutes by traveling along the Spree River.

In November, Candela said it had raised an additional $14 million in its Series C round, putting the company’s total secured funding in 2024 at over $40 million. The investment will help Candela ramp up production to meet demand for its vessels. The new $14-million investment was led by SEB Private Equity, a global private equity investor, with additional participation by existing investors EQT Ventures and KanDela.

Source: Candela