Electric ferry runs out of battery – Rescued by fossil fuel police boat

Are you ready for electric ferries?

The Ika Rere, a brand new vessel and the first electric powered ferry in the southern hemisphere just had to be rescued after running out of battery in the harbor, leaving the vessel stranded without any power!

Luckily help was on the way, with a fossil fuel powered police boat coming to rescue the stranded passengers.

After successfully rescuing the passengers, the police boat went back out to tug the electric ferry back to port.

You cannot make this up.

An inferior electric powered ferry ran out of battery and had to be rescued with a traditional fossil fuel powered boat.

Just a few weeks ago the media wrote an article praising the ”electric ferry revolution” in Auckland set to cost $150 million.

Welcome to clown world.

I do actually have some experience with electric ferries. Here in Norway, they recently swapped out perfectly fine 10 year old diesel ferries with brand new electric ferries, for the environment of course. Never mind that it cost millions and millions of tax payers money, which of course meant they had to INCREASE the ferry prices (but now they have subsidized the prices with tax payer money, so it is cheaper again…).

The whole thing is ridiculous. While they are quieter when running on battery, they do have a backup diesel engine and often when I take the ferry I can hear the diesel engine going, meaning they ran out of battery power. And this despite the fact that they purpose built special chargers for the ferries that draw so much power they had to get their own power lines, otherwise they would cause blackouts in the village.

The whole thing is dumb, basically just another way to spend tax payers money without any gains (except for climate change they say).

Maybe they would save money on the diesel? Well, maybe not so much anymore considering we are in an energy crisis and the electricity prices are skyrocketing.

In Norway if you want to fully charge a Tesla at a Circle K fast charger, it would cost you around $90. Yes, you read that correctly.

PeterSweden @PeterSweden7

The price for charging an electric car at Circle K in Norway is now $9 per kwh. Meaning that it would cast $90 to fully charge a Tesla. This is MORE EXPENSIVE than filling up a gasoline car. So what is the point of having an electric car???

It is now more expensive to charge an electric car at a fast charger in Norway than to fill up your gasoline car.

Back to the electric ferry.

Would you ride an electric ferry?