00:10Well, I'm on a boat that's literally flying above a water surface. It's a pretty amazing
00:17feeling and it's the idea of a Swedish company that wants to revolutionize water transport.
00:31We're in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden. Sitting on 14 islands, it's also called the
00:37Venice of the North. This is where these unusual boats were designed by a Swedish start-up
00:42with a plan to change the lives of commuters worldwide.
00:48Hello, my name is Mikael Malberg. Welcome to Candela in Stockholm. We build the very first
00:54electric hydrofoiling ferries here. We have a sales department here, legal and procurement.
01:05We have around 60 engineers at Candela and we're producing one vessel every two weeks.
01:14Set in the port of Freehamnen in central Stockholm, Candela has built its own testing dock for
01:20its electric powered boats. The company has gone a long way since it was founded in 2014
01:26by this man, a trained engineer.
01:29My name is Gustav Hasselskog. I'm the founder and CEO of Candela. And here we have the first
01:35prototype of the ferry P-12. We put that one into water almost three years ago. Since then
01:42we have built a lot of boats. So welcome aboard.
01:50This boat is the world's first commuter-scale electric hydrofoiling vessel using computer-controlled
01:56foils to fly above the water. We have now seven knots of speed. We will put power up to 17
02:06and then
02:07she lifts above the water and then we fly in around 25 knots, 30 centimeters over the sea
02:15and with a consumption of 9 kilowatt per nautical miles. That's one dollar consumption electricity.
02:27When we lift the boat, the drag from the water reduces 80 to 85%. We charge this boat fully in
02:36approximately
02:36one hour. We can drive normally 40 nautical miles and we can have 30 passengers.
02:42And one of the most striking things you can see is that you have almost no weight around
02:47the boat. We don't burn a lot of energy creating massive changes in the direction of the water.
02:52When you can reduce the energy consumption and we reduce it with something like 80%, then we also
03:00take out a lot of the fuel costs. So that means that operating this type of ferry is cheaper
03:05than operating traditional old diesel ferries. Ferry traffic consumes something like 15 times
03:11more fuel per seat or per kilometer seat than if you go by a city bus. So although in most
03:19cities the ferry transport is fairly small, it contributes a lot to the total emissions from
03:24the public transport. So there is a tremendous potential to go after this big bucket of CO2 emissions
03:30with this new technology. The Candela P12 shuttle started operating in late 2024 on a 15 kilometer
03:40route linking the Ekerø suburb and central Stockholm. Compared to traditional ferries, travel time
03:47was reduced by half and CO2 emissions were slashed by over 90%. Plans to expand the service to other routes
03:55are in the pipeline and surveys have shown high levels of passenger satisfaction. It's easy to
04:03understand why while we're filming the P12 ferry from one of the high speed electric foiling leisure
04:09boats also designed by Candela. I'm actually steering the computer and the boat is steered by the software
04:18intern. When the boat is flying, it needs to be micro-adjusted by the hydrofoil 100 times per second to
04:22be kept stable
04:24and smooth. I just go full speed like this and then the boat will automatically turn off.
04:32So we're approaching a speed of 70 knots here and the boat is now fully foil born. So we're flying
04:39roughly
04:40a meter above the water. This is a digital pill against sea sickness. The greatest benefit of this
04:46technology is that it's really a better experience. I mean, now we're sitting here and we can talk to
04:52each other without screaming. It opens up a new world of water transport because you start to talk to
04:58your passengers instead of just sitting in silence and holding on to the airline. And the whole idea with
05:03the hydrofoiling concept is to take the discomfort out of boating at the same time to reduce the operating
05:11costs. And of course, spare the environment for emissions, local oil spillage and above all wake and noise.
05:22Back in Stockholm, production is in full swing at the Candela factory.
05:28We have multiple boats on the assembly line right now. We have three ranges right now. We have the lounge
05:35version,
05:36the business and the tour. Efforts at the moment are focused on the P-12 ferries to meet increasing demand.
05:43We have around 10 P-12 vessels on the assembly line. And there's quite a lot of challenges being the
05:52first time we're serial producing these boats. A lot of electrical assembly, a lot of mechanical assembly,
05:57a lot of communication through the boat. A vessel is leaving every month at the moment and we are scaling
06:03the production to be leaving every two weeks. And interest is rising with 65 orders including from India,
06:12Thailand, the Maldives, Saudi Arabia or the US. Candela recently secured a contract for 20 ferries with a
06:21major operator in Norway, the world's largest electric hydrofoil fleet order so far. Yet Europe is the
06:29company's slowest customer. It takes a long time to get this type of transition to a new technology in
06:36Europe. You need long political processes and then you have public tendering processes that can be
06:42terribly slow. We see strong growth in Asia. We also see good sales in the US but weaker in Europe
06:51so far.
06:52Talks, however, are ongoing with several European countries. A Berlin-based operator has already bought
06:59a P-12 commuter ferry. Candela now has broader ambitions. It plans to increase staff from 250 to 1,000
07:07people,
07:07open a new factory in Poland and scale up production to 50 boats a year.
07:12We see a strong demand throughout the world and I don't think we have seen more than a percent of
07:18it yet.
07:19There is tremendous potential to scale this globally. And I think it's important to see that the waterways are the
07:26oldest way of transport in Europe and elsewhere in the world. And now we have a way to get back
07:34to that in a new way.
07:35And I think also that compared to going by bus or by car, going by boat makes people happy.
07:40I think soon we are going to see thousands of ferries throughout the world. So whatever city you get to,
07:47you are going to get tired of finding Candelas also there.
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