Candela Tech Talks

The tech
that enables
it all.

Candela Tech Talks
C-Foil System
Candela Tech Talks
The Flight Controller
Candela Tech Talks
The C-Pod Motor

Candela C-POD

A new frontier
The Candela C-POD is designed to be the most efficient and long-lasting boat motor ever made. Two compact permanent magnet motors under the water provide unrivaled range and efficiency. Enough thrust to make our boats fly at a speed of 30 knots, quietly.
Electric direct-drive means no noise from gears, no oil changes and no maintenance. The patent-pending Candela C-POD will last a lifetime, without needing service.

Candela C-POD –
The ultimate boat motor

  • Efficiency
  • Built to last
  • Whisper quiet
Candela C-POD is the first electric pod motor designed for high-speed boats. The direct, all-electric drive reduces friction to a minimum and provides 23% more range than the best electric outboards. Custom-designed electric motors enables a power density that is 4 times better than competitors.
Candela C-POD requires no maintenance and will last 3000 hours without service. No need to change oil or cooling fluid, as the sealed electric motors are cooled by the flow of seawater.

Combined with the low running costs of Candela’s hydrofoil craft, Candela C-POD makes for truly trouble-free boating.
By placing the motors under the water, we get rid of typical squeaking and whirring sounds from gearboxes and mechanical transmissions. Thanks to the Candela C-POD, Candela’s hydrofoil crafts are the most silent electric boats on the market. At any speed.

How it started

The foundation
In 2014, our founder Gustav assembled a group of experts within composite engineering, flight control electronics, hydrodynamics, dynamic modeling and drone control systems. The aim was to find ways to create electric boats that could offer the elusive combination of both range and speed.
Poised to re-define maritime travel, our hydrofoiling electric boats – born from over 10,000 hours of dedicated research and sea trials in Lidingö, Stockholm – glide effortlessly across the water. Combining cutting-edge electric propulsion with active stabilization, they set the bar for speed, efficiency, and durability.

The innovation formula
behind the success

  • C-FOIL system
  • Ultra-light build
  • Avionics
Hydrofoils remove 50% of the drag compared to a planing boat. This is the most important principle in our design. Hydrofoils can be designed in different ways with varying efficiencies and behavior. We opted for the most efficient and precise solution possible, which is fully submerged foils. Other types of foiling systems are less efficient and are therefore not suitable for electrification.

Similar to a traffic airplane: Candela’s craft use a large, straight main foil close to center of gravity and a smaller T-foil in the aft. The foils are retractable for trailing, storage and shallow water operation.
Batteries are heavy. In order to make up for this, we needed to make the hull extremely light, while still rigid and strong. The solution was making it with 100% carbon fiber, which allows the Candela hydrofoils to weigh significantly less than a similar boat of the same size.
A flying boat with submerged foils needs active stabilization. That’s why we at Candela are industry-leading in combining electric propulsion with hydrofoiling.

The software and electronics are engineered to allow us to design a precise and performance-driven experience in rough sea and sharp turns. The flight control system uses a variety of sensors to estimate the position, velocity, and acceleration of the boat on all axis. Further, it combines measurement from more than 10 sensors, to estimate the true state of the system at all times.

Questions?
Here’s the top five.

What are the maintenance requirements?

In terms of service costs, an electric boat inherently requires less service than a fossil fuel equivalent due to fewer moving parts. Our Candela C-POD in particular is projected to have a 3000 hour service life. We recommend one scheduled service appointment with a Candela certified service technician. In colder climates, winterization should be performed before the boat is put into cold-storage.

How do you keep the boat stable?

We use an advanced control system that stabilizes the naturally unstable boat in just about any condition. Sensors around the perimeter of our boats measure wave height and feed this information to our Flight Controller. Height, roll and pitch data are as well. The Flight Controller is then able to adjust the position at up to 100 times per second, in order to achieve stability.

What materials do you use for the hull?

We exclusively use carbon fiber in all of our boats. Currently, there are no alternative materials that meet our expectations of stiffness, weight, longevity and cost.

Which foil configuration and wing profile do you use?

All Candela vessels use fully submerged hydrofoils in a specific configuration. We employ one large, straight main foil close to the center of gravity and a smaller foil in the aft, attached to the propulsion unit. All Candela foil systems are retractable for trailing, storage and shallow water operation. As for the wing profile, in the pursuit of the perfect relation between efficiency and performance, we have designed our own proprietary shape for our foils. To offset the environmental footprint of the carbon fiber and batteries in our vessels, we have built them to last a long time. Moreover, we build light, meaning we need less carbon fiber and smaller batteries and end up using a lot less energy to transport passengers than our competitors.

What software do you use in your boats?

To give our users the best possible experience, we develop all customer facing software in-house. This includes the foil control software. We’ve chosen this challenging but rewarding path of building our own stuff, for several reasons. Firstly, we aim to make boating frictionless – the software should interface seamlessly with the features of the boat. We were simply not happy with the available third party options out there. Secondly, remotely performed software updates should be easily done, and should provide a constantly improving and ever more robust user experience. Thirdly, if you need help, our service team can remotely log in to your boat’s system to help out.