The maritime industry faces a critical infrastructure challenge regarding the electrification of marine transport. In this comprehensive review of the conversation in episode 29 of the The 2pt5 Innovator Podcast, titled “On course to smart boating”, Innovation Coach Dr. Klaus Reichert discusses sustainable boating with Emil Finne, the founder and CEO of Elvene. Based in Jakobstad, Finland, Elvene builds 100% self-sustainable vessels that bypass the need for external charging infrastructure entirely. By capturing energy from the sun to power electric drivetrains, the company offers a template for green tech product development. The discussion reveals that successful innovation in this sector depends less on battery technology and more on data-driven boat design and hull optimization for electric boats.

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Core Insights

The conversation yields several foundational insights for engineering and innovation teams working within the green tech space.

• First, the primary limiting factor for solar electric boats is not the drivetrain, but the physical efficiency of the vessel hull. Solar energy represents a fixed energy budget that requires hydrodynamic perfection to perform best.
• Second, market assumptions regarding user needs often conflict with empirical data. Designing for how customers actually use a product, rather than what they claim they want, leads to vastly more efficient product development.
• Third, historical engineering can solve modern technical dilemmas. Elvene bypassed standard modern hull limitations by analyzing smuggler boat hydrodynamics from the early 20th century.
• Fourth, regulatory frameworks frequently lag behind technological innovation. Overcoming these policy barriers requires agile market shifting and direct political engagement using empirical data collected from friendly international markets.

Deep Dive Chapter 1: Overcoming the Infrastructure Bottleneck Through Physical Design

What is the biggest roadblock to the widespread adoption of electric maritime vessels? The industry frequently points to a lack of coastal charging infrastructure as the primary bottleneck preventing transition. Elvene addresses this question by removing the grid from the equation entirely. They design solar boats that operate as completely self-sustainable vessels.

However, relying entirely on solar power introduces a severe energy constraint challenge. The sun emits a constant value of approximately 1000 watts of energy per square meter. Given that modern solar panel technology operates at an efficiency rate of 23 to 24 percent, an engineer only has about 230 to 240 watts per square meter available to power a vessel. This limited energy budget means that standard, heavy planing hulls designed for fossil fuel engines are structurally non-viable for solar power.

The solutions to these physical design challenges include:

• Shifting the engineering focus entirely to the architecture of the boat hull rather than the electrical systems.
• Utilizing advanced lightweight materials to minimize the displacement mass of the vessel.
• Creating hydrodynamically perfect hull forms that minimize water resistance at multiple speed thresholds.
• Integrating walkable solar panels directly into the structural deck surface to maximize energy capture area without sacrificing usability.

Emil Finne explains this engineering constraint directly:

“The difficult part and the challenging part, and the interesting part is to optimize the boat so you get the maximum performance out of quite limited amount of energy. And what this means is just building energy efficient boats, and the electrical system is just one part of it. Actually, the complicated part and the, the part that matters the most is the boat itself. To build a very energy efficient hull that is hydro hydrodynamically perfect.”

Deep Dive Chapter 2: Data-Driven Boat Design and Historical Efficiency Benchmarks

How can an innovation team design an efficient product when consumer desires demand high speeds and long ranges? Elvene answered this by adopting a strict data-driven boat design process. They analyzed real-world usage statistics gathered from a major Finnish boat-sharing platform to determine exactly how leisure operators utilize their vessels.

The empirical data revealed a sharp contrast with public perception. The average leisure boater in Nordic countries travels only 12 to 14 nautical miles per day at an average speed of seven to eight knots. Despite this, consumers frequently purchase heavy boats built to travel hundreds of miles at 40 knots. Elvene applied the 80/20 rule to optimize their initial product range for a realistic daily range of 20 nautical miles and a top speed of 15 knots.

The core challenge then became designing a hull that could glide efficiently at slow displacement speeds but still scale up to higher planing speeds without hitches or excessive energy draw. To solve this, Finne bypassed modern marine benchmarks and researched Finnish prohibition history from the early 1900s. Smugglers of that era needed fast boats to outrun authority vessels but only had access to small, low-horsepower combustion engines. Consequently, they designed exceptionally efficient, long, narrow hulls.

The solutions developed from this research include:

• Combining digital simulations and physical prototype testing to refine historical hull concepts.
• Utilizing the high-efficiency principles of century-old smuggler boat hydrodynamics as a primary design baseline.
• Partnering with an experienced naval architect to translate historical lines into modern, stable composite configurations.
• Building a modular internal deck architecture that allows the company to adapt to changing customer speeds based on iterative feedback.

Emil Finne describes the rediscovery of these historical designs:

“Some of the most energy efficient hulls I’ve seen, and I’ve found are these old smuggler boats that are like 110, 120 years old. But this is actually where we started. These, liquor smuggling boats were absolutely amazing. The hydrodynamics of them are superb. And this is where we started. So that was our benchmark. And then we got a benchmark to, to work against and started working from that.”

When consumers eventually demanded higher speeds despite the usage data, this optimized hull allowed Elvene to scale their top speeds up to 30 knots while maintaining solar sustainability, successfully covering over 200 nautical miles without plugging into an external power source.

Deep Dive Chapter 3: Navigating Legislative Barriers and Commercial Viability

How can a green tech startup scale when local government policies actively disincentivize sustainable boating solutions? While developing their initial business case, Elvene targeted commercial fishing and sustainable eco-tourism as their primary entry markets. Commercial operators possess precise data regarding their daily routes, speeds, and operational frequencies, making it easy to calculate a definitive financial return on investment. In commercial fishing, fuel is the single highest operating cost, meaning a solar boat could eliminate 100 percent of this expense while improving the working environment by removing noise, vibrations, and fumes.

However, the team encountered a massive bureaucratic challenge within Europe. European Union fishing fleet policies contained a direct contradiction: a commercial fisherman purchasing a traditional diesel or gasoline vessel qualified for a 50 percent investment grant, whereas an operator choosing an electric vessel received zero financial support. This regulatory environment effectively broke the initial Elvene European commercial business model.

The solutions deployed to overcome these political and market barriers include:

• Pivoting the commercial product line temporarily to the leisure, hospitality, and water taxi markets where subventions were less distorted.
• Exporting the commercial fishing vessel configurations to West Africa, specifically Ghana, where consistent equatorial sunlight and high fuel prices created an immediate, unsubsidized market need.
• Utilizing the operational data collected from the African deployments to build an empirical case for European policy reform.
• Launching direct, long-term lobbying efforts with European policymakers, culminating in field demonstrations with the European commissioner in charge of maritime matters to drive legislative changes.

Emil Finne notes the frustration and eventual progress regarding policy friction:

“When we then mainly focused on Europe and the European market. We realized that there were a lot of contradictions within the policies and the legislations regarding commercial fishing within the EU. And what happened was, if we take it, if we really summarize this like, into a really simplified package is if a commercial fisherman wants to buy a new fishing vessel. They get 50% investment grant if they buy a traditional boat, which means it’s powered by diesel or gasoline. If they want to buy an boat powered by electric electricity they don’t get an investment grant.”

Product Evolution: From Garage Prototype to International Market

“It’s taken a couple of years, but we’re finally now at the level so we can have these discussions and, and we are seeing the change happening. So that why we’re taking the step back into commercial fishing.”

The development trajectory of Elvene highlights how a hardware startup can iterate rapidly using modular engineering principles. Finne built the initial engineering platform, named Greta, by hand in his garage during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns between 2019 and 2020. Greta served as a raw proof of concept to verify calculations and test the electric drivetrain under solar loads.

Unexpected consumer demand turned this prototype into their first commercial product, which was ultimately containerized and shipped internationally to both Europe and Africa. This was followed by Amber, a high-performance vessel featuring a walkable solar deck that functions simultaneously as an anti-skid surface, replacing traditional glass fiber or teak. To capture the warmer Mediterranean hospitality market, Elvene subsequently developed Amy, a social, open-bow configuration optimized for comfort, beach resorts, and eco-tourism. A fourth model is scheduled for release shortly, continuing the company’s highly iterative product lifecycle.

Tipps for Innovation Teams

To help innovation teams transition from listening to doing, the following actionable strategies are derived from Elvene’s engineering journey and broader innovation management frameworks.

Design around immutable physical facts instead of aspirational fiction. Establish your exact energy, material, or environmental budgets at day one. If the physics do not balance on paper, do not waste capital building a prototype hoping the math will change.

Look backward in history to find efficiency benchmarks. Modern industries often overcomplicate solutions by throwing excessive energy or computing power at a problem. Reviewing how engineers solved similar problems a century ago with limited energy footprints can reveal elegant structural breakthroughs.

Let real-world data dictate your initial product specifications. Implement the 80/20 rule by studying actual user metrics rather than relying on customer surveys. Consumers often over-spec their real needs based on rare, worst-case scenarios, which can lead to over-engineered, inefficient products.

Build immediate modularity into your early hardware designs. Accept that your initial market entry configuration will not perfectly fit user expectations. By creating modular structural platforms, you can rapidly adjust components, like expanding a speed profile or altering a deck layout, without rebuilding your manufacturing molds from scratch.

Pivot geographically when facing regulatory or bureaucratic roadblocks. If local legislation or subsidy frameworks penalize your green tech innovation, locate an international market where the immediate economic pain point eliminates the need for regulatory assistance. Use the data gathered abroad to pressure domestic lawmakers.

Prepare your technical team for the gap between science and public opinion. Engineers often assume that presenting empirical data is sufficient to win a market. Innovation teams must dedicate equal energy to translating scientific milestones into relatable consumer experiences, focusing on tangible benefits like zero noise, lack of fuel smell, and lower operating costs.

Links

• Elvene Solar Electric Boats
• The Federation of Finnish Marine Industries (Finnboat)
• Jacobi Boat – the first electric boat
• The first functionable electric motor (video of replica)
• History of the electric motor (Smart Innovation Podcast, German)

Transcript

Automatically generated with manual touches.

Emil Finne: [00:00:00] That is a very good question.

How long can I talk? How long of a, we love all the time in the world. If we really start from the beginning. I mean, boats have been a passion of mine my whole life. I designed and built my first boat when I was 12 years old. Uh, so some help from my dad, but I designed and built the first boat from 12 years old. Then all my life I’ve been building boats, uh, for myself. I didn’t turn it into an, uh, to a job until later on in my career.

Klaus Reichert: How old are you now?

Emil Finne: I’m 38.

Klaus Reichert: Okay, so you have quite a track record.

Emil Finne: Yeah, exactly. I’ve been building boats for some time. I’m actually, I got a master degree in vehicle technology. I should be in the car industry, should be designing electric cars.

Klaus Reichert: [00:01:00] Welcome to the 2.5 Conversations Connecting Innovators. My name is Klaus. I’m an innovation coach in Baden-Württemberg in the Southwest of Germany. Innovators and creators from around the globe help each other by sharing highs and lows, their motivation and creative passions, as well as their favorite methods, tools, and ideas.

The name of the podcast comes from the 2.5%. Innovators from Roger’s Diffusion of Innovation Theory. Find more details, all the episodes and transcripts at the2pt5.net Enjoy the show.

In this episode of the 2.5 Innovator Podcast, I’m talking to Emil Finne, he’s the CEO and founder of [00:02:00] Elvene, a solar boat builder in Finland. Emil, how did I do pronouncing your, your company name?

Emil Finne: I think you succeeded very well.

Klaus Reichert: I tried really hard.

Emil Finne: It was one of the better ones.

Yeah.

Klaus Reichert: Okay. Different language is different. Uh, culture is different, whatever. That is always, always, always tricky. I’m from Germany and you’re, you’re in Finland, so that’s a, it’s a miracle that it works technically to, to have such a conversation, even if it, we got used to all this, but it’s, I’m always surprised that these things work.

Uh, hello to the podcast. I’m glad that you took the time to, to be on this conversation.

Emil Finne: Thank you so much and uh, I’m really happy to be here. And thank you for inviting me. Uh, looking forward to our discussions and see, see what we can come up with today.

Klaus Reichert: So Emil you built boats in Finland. Da, what’s new here?

Emil Finne: Yes, we [00:03:00] built boats in Finland. Finland has very long heritage of boat building. Goes all the way back to when Finland was a part of Sweden, the Swedish Kingdom and the area where I’m living in, Jakobstad, this area was decided to be the shipbuilding area of the Swedish kingdom. So the, the history goes back all to that time and we still have a very strong boat building cluster here from everything from small outboard runabouts up to hundred plus feet super yachts. So we got a lot of boat building experience here. But I would say what we do differently at Elvene is that our boats, uh, are 100% self-sustainable. Uh, they don’t need any external energy. They produce all the energy they need themselves, and this energy is coming from the sun.[00:04:00]

That is the difference.

Klaus Reichert: If you didn’t say from the sun, I, I would’ve guessed that you’re building sailboats.

Emil Finne: Exactly. Now we, we would like to go, uh, against the wind as well, and it’s, uh, it’s easier to steer if you can just go in any direction you choose. So, so we decided to go with solar power instead.

Klaus Reichert: Great. Solar power, that means that, uh, you built boats, right? There is an electric motor. And some panels somewhere. Give us an, I guess so, right? And then there’s some sense Yeah, exactly. Or whatever. Yeah. But for what kind of use case? Do you build the boats right now or the, the current boats?

Emil Finne: Yeah. Uh, we start from the beginning. You’re absolutely right with the basics of the technologies. Uh, the boat is covered with solar panels that charge a battery that runs the motor. That’s the [00:05:00] whole solution in its simplicity. The difficult part comes, or the hard part comes when you start integrating this and actually optimizing it.

Because we know exactly how much energy we’re getting from the sun. We get around a thousand watts per square meter. That’s what the sun is emitting all the time. Solar panel has solar panels currently have an efficiency of around 23/24%, which means you’re getting around 230, 240 watts per square meter of solar panel.

So this is a constant. We have, we know the amount of energy we’re getting and it’s not much, actually, it’s quite a limited amount. Uh, so the difficult part and the challenging part, and the interesting part is to optimize the boat so you get the maximum performance out of quite limited amount of energy.

And what this [00:06:00] means is just building energy efficient boats, and the electrical system is just one part of it. Actually, the complicated part and the, the part that matters the most is the boat itself. To build a very energy efficient hull that is hydro hydrodynamically perfect. And also very lightweight so that you get a boat that actually works with this technology.

And for the use cases. We have several use cases we’re working for, working with. Currently hospitality is one of the main ones. So with that, I mean, we’re working with a lot of hotels, beach resorts, et cetera. Uh, a lot of eco tourism where they want to provide sustainable water cruises to their clients.

This is a great use case. Also water taxis and what we’re right now getting into more and more, uh, and which is [00:07:00] turning out to be an absolutely fantastic use case, uh, is commercial fishing. So both in water and coastal fishing, not, not anything like out in the open oceans, but coastal fishing and inland fishing.

This is a really, a great use case.

Klaus Reichert: I see that a lot. But first of all, what, what I understand is that that you’re looking into different, uh, industries. You’re looking into different usages of these boats, and we need to come back to the hull design and stuff like that. Right. I’m, I’m sort of, uh, jumping over that.

Um, sorry for that. Um, and

Emil Finne: Oh, it’s just the most interesting part. So don’t worry about that.

Klaus Reichert: It’s just the invisible part that nobody’s ever going to see. Right. Only the, the person that is, is cleaning the, the hull, uh, in wintertime.

Emil Finne: Yeah.

Klaus Reichert: But so, so, but what I understand is, uh, tourism it’s a very first choice thing, uh, to [00:08:00] go into tourism. I think with a solar boat, uh, solar, electric boat, since there’s so many rentals, uh, or as you said that are green tourism, uh, uh, starting, popping up, that it just makes sense. Uh, it’s less, uh, pain on the operators, right? The batteries are always charged, uh, that you never have to change the oil of the, the engine and stuff like that.

And what’s also quite common is that the operators have to get the people, uh, with the rental boats, with a, um, a gas engine that ran out of gas, right? So it’s just a pain for the operators also. Plus it’s loud, it’s smelly and so on. And it’s just no fun, uh, to have a, a, a, an engine with gas.

And what I like is that you’re looking into additional industries, which, uh, seems at the first, at first glance, so, so far distant from, uh, the tourism, uh, use case. But as you say, it’s the same thing, right? You don’t want to have smells, you don’t want to [00:09:00] have, uh, uh, noise. Um, you stay stationary a lot.

Possibly you, you, you don’t want to use a lot of energy. You don’t wanna produce CO2. You’d want to have low cost. That’s something you have in other industries a lot. Also, this requirement.

Emil Finne: No, exactly. And we’re looking into, I mean, we are a very data-driven company, an engineering company that really believes in engineering and a fact-based company.

So we’re, when we’re looking into different use cases, we want to have some data available so we can do the calculations and build the business case according to that. Uh, and this is much easier in commercial operations, uh, and it’s also a lot easier explaining the benefits and the case when you have the correct data to work with.

And, uh, if we’re talking about, for example, commercial fishing, which [00:10:00] seems to be kind of an odd industry maybe to, to walk into for a company like us. But for them, their main expense is actually fuel. It’s the fuel cost that is their main expense. And uh, we can get rid of that to 100%.

Klaus Reichert: Yes.

Emil Finne: So it’s not only about giving them a better working environment, of course they get that as well.

They get a better working environment because they get rid of vibrations, sound, fumes, fuel, all of that. But at the same time, they’re saving a lot of money. And of course it’s the environmental benefits, that they are not polluting waters. So it’s like a win, win, win, win win situation. There’s no no downside to it at all. And when we’re talking about commercial fishing and other commercial operations, like I said, they have the data. They know how far they are going, they know [00:11:00] how fast they’re going, they know how often they go. So they can present to you exactly the data that they have and what kind of performance they need. And then it’s really easy to offer that solution.

Klaus Reichert: It’s easy for you to plan that. It’s easy for you to calculate that, and it’s easy for them to understand that because it starts to get a no-brainer if, if you, if you work, uh, uh, in daytime, basically, right? If you work nighttime, it might be a, a bit different.

I understand. So how do you get to, into that new thing, right? You started with, uh, with, uh, the tourist use case, and then you, you discovered that there is, uh, fishing as a possibility. Did you find that or have made that observation yourself? Did you talk to different people and ask them what their needs are? Uh, did they come to you and ask you for a solution?

Emil Finne: Actually if we’re going really back to the beginning, it started the other way around. Fishing was actually the first use case we were [00:12:00] looking into both commercial fishing and uh, sport fishing.

Okay.

It might have something to do with that, I’m a very eager fisherman myself, but it might have something to do with that. But no. So really, really from the beginning, some five, six years ago when we started designing the first boats, our goal was to build fishing boats and, uh, fishing vessels. Uh, because it just makes so much sense.

Klaus Reichert: Yes.

Emil Finne: But then, then we realized when it comes to fishing, there’s a lot of legislation involved into this and a lot of bureaucracy and a lot of different policies that don’t go hand to hand.

So when we then mainly focused on Europe and the European market. We realized that there were a lot of contradictions within the policies and the legislations regarding [00:13:00] commercial fishing within the EU. And what happened was, if we take it, if we really summarize this like, uh, into a really simplified package is if a commercial fisherman wants to buy a new fishing vessel. They get 50% investment grant if they buy a traditional boat, which means it’s powered by diesel or gasoline. If they want to buy an boat powered by electric electricity they don’t get an investment grant.

Klaus Reichert: Oops.

Emil Finne: Yeah. So that’s kind of the whole business case failed there at that point when we realized that, and that’s when we took the turn into leisure boats, hospitality, taxi boats, et cetera.

But the, the, the fishing case was always in the back of my mind and I didn’t wanna let go of that. So actually in uh, then in [00:14:00] Africa, in Western Africa, which is quite a good market for us. That’s where we once again, went back into fishing and to commercial fishing. Uh, started doing some fishing boats there.

Continuation in preparation.