And it is done: We just spent an insane amount of money on our new outboard engine: 2.028,75 EUR to be exact. To put it in perspective: Normally such an engine costs between 600 and 700 EUR.
So why did we do it? Is it at least pretty? Nope – it looks like if a German engineer tried to play designer => not very pretty:
So why then? It’s an electrical engine. Which is in some regards is even inferior to the traditional gasoline powered engines for 650 EUR:
- ~ 3x more expensive to buy
- Takes hours to recharge (instead of a few minutes to refill a fuel tank)
- It has somewhat limited capacity due to the state of the art of the current battery technology
But it also comes with upsides which made us choose it in the end:
- Starting is SUPER easy. Just turn the handle and off it goes. No pulling a string, fiddling around with the choke, swearing that it doesn’t start. This means Sherrie can handle it without problems. Happy Admiral => happy Captain
- No explosive gasoline on board
- Maintenance free (after 5 years the sealing at the propeller needs to be checked)
- Pretty environmental friendly (no leaking of gasoline, no fumes, etc.)
And talking about costs, lets take a closer look on the costs over the lifetime:
| Cost | Suzuki DF 2.5 | Torqeedo Travel 1003 CS |
|---|---|---|
| Initial costs | 650 EUR | 2000 EUR |
| Maintenance / year | 150 EUR | 0 EUR |
| Gas / year (0.5h / day operation) | 365×0.5h x 0.8l/h x 1,40 EUR/l = 204 EUR | 0 EUR |
| Yearly costs | 354 EUR | 0 EUR |
We assume here that we will use the outboard engine for 30 min per day in average and that we don’t pay for the electricity but will recharge the battery from excess solar power which we have already.
This makes for the following break even calculation:
| Year | Suzuki DF 2.5 | Torqeedo Travel 1003 CS | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 650 EUR | 2000 EUR | -1350 EUR |
| 1 | 1004 EUR | 2000 EUR | -996 |
| 2 | 1519 EUR | 2000 EUR | -481 |
| 3 | 2034 EUR | 2000 EUR | + 43 |
So after 3 years we should be in the positive. Let’s see if this will work out, we will keep you posted. But truth be told: it doesn’t actually matter. As long as Sherrie can handle the engine (which she couldn’t the old one) she is happy – and so is the rest of the family 😀