CES 2023: Brunswick makes waves with Veer electric boats, outboard electric motors

Pras Subramanian
·Senior Reporter
Updated ·2 min read
43

Brunswick (BC), the world’s largest consumer marine company behind brands like Boston Whaler, Sea Ray, and Mercury is making waves at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in land-locked Las Vegas this year.

This being CES, the focus is on innovation and what’s next. For Brunswick this means electrification.

Brunswick’s Mercury Marine power division introduced its Avator 7.5e electric outboard at the show. The 7.5e electric motor is the first in a series of electric outboard products that will be released in 2023. Mercury also displayed concepts for its Avator 20e and 35e outboard motors, which will be coming later in 2023.

The Mercury Avator 7.5e electric outboard (credit: Brunswick)
The Mercury Avator 7.5e electric outboard (credit: Brunswick)

Mercury said the Avator 7.5e generates 750W of power at the prop shaft—that would be similar to the power and acceleration of a Mercury 3.5hp FourStroke gas powered motor that you would find on a small fishing boat, or tender.

The Avator comes paired with a 1kWh lithium ion battery, which doesn’t sound like much juice. But the batteries are easily swappable in order to have all-day use on small pond, or ferrying passengers to bigger boats on larger bodies of water.

In addition to Avator, Brunswick unveiled an entirely new brand, called Veer. Brunswick said the Veer boat brand will “support electric propulsion and appeal to the next generation of boaters.” The company showed off the Veer X-13 model at CES.

The X13 is a 13-foot boat built from rotomolded polyethylene, a type of marine plastic that is lightweight and can generally withstand a lot of abuse. The X13 is designed to be powered by the Mercury Avator electric outboard motors, but it can also accommodate traditional Mercury FourStroke outboards too.

The Veer X13 small fishing boat (credit: Brunswick)
The Veer X13 small fishing boat (credit: Brunswick)

The X13 was designed by Brunswick brand Lund Boats – which specializes in fishing boat design. Brunswick said the X13 wil offer “exceptional quality and robustness, a contemporary design, combined with thoughtful and ingenious fishing-focused features.” Brunswick hopes the X13 will be game-changer, which offers boating to the masses, focusing on performance, ease-of-use, and affordability.

Combined with a service like Brunswick's Freedom Boat Club - think of it as an Airbnb for boats - Brunswick could offer Veer electric boats as rentals for boaters looking to dip their toes into the marine world. Brunswick CEO David Foulkes said as much to Yahoo Finance back in August during the company's NYC press day at Chelsea Piers.

Brunswick said that pricing for the X13 will start at $11,995 with standard features, and will be available for order in the Spring 2023.

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Pras Subramanian is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. You can follow him on Twitter and on Instagram.

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