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The Problem with 'Converted' Electric Outboards
December 10, 2025 · 4 min · 100 views
What this video covers
Flexmarine, a marine propulsion startup led by Jonathan Lord, builds electric outboards from the ground up rather than converting combustion outboard lower units.▶ 0:06 Lord argues that converted designs retain the original gearbox, clutch, and open-loop saltwater cooling — components that stay noisy, maintenance-heavy, and corrosion-prone even after the combustion powerhead is removed.▶ 0:52 Flexmarine's system replaces the gear drive with a belt-drive power transmission, eliminating the clutch entirely and letting the electric motor handle all speed and direction changes.▶ 1:10 Cooling runs on a closed-loop water-glycol circuit that dissipates heat through the anti-ventilation plate, keeping saltwater out of sensitive components.▶ 1:28 The target power range is 100–150 horsepower equivalents.▶ 1:52 Lord identifies three primary markets: recreational boaters on lakes and inshore/nearshore waters (pontoons, intercoastal use in Florida), working-waterfront operators such as oyster, seaweed, and kelp farms where fuel cost, maintenance downtime, and oil contamination in the water are direct financial problems, and military/defense customers drawn to the system's low acoustic signature and modular, scalable battery architecture.▶ 2:25
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