New Seacraft Go! DPV

[Narcosis Mike]

Dumb question but I'll ask it anyway.

The prop on the GO looks like it's all the way at the back of the unit and only held on by magnets, while on the Future and Ghost there is a shroud behind it which appears to hold it on. How does the GO prop stay on with all the thrust being generated, and wouldn't it be a risk that it could fall off when entering the water off a boat?

 

[TheScubaPanda]

@tsjackson why is the cost of the battery a matter to you it's part of the price of the scooter, realistically you're not buying a new batteries in yeaaaaars.

Batteries are expensive to manufacture because you have to account for CE and TSA certification for travel, plus engineering and manufacturing.
Plus as I mentioned earlier, you don't need all 6 modules to operate if one fails, and the Seacraft Go is far far more Watt-efficient, you will get muuuuch more range with the same battery capacity. So you really can't compare apples to apples here, they are really two different classes of product.

 

[TheScubaPanda]

Dumb question but I'll ask it anyway.

The prop on the GO looks like it's all the way at the back of the unit and only held on by magnets, while on the Future and Ghost there is a shroud behind it which appears to hold it on. How does the GO prop stay on with all the thrust being generated, and wouldn't it be a risk that it could fall off when entering the water off a boat?

The prop on the Future & Ghost is in front of the stator. Hence the name - post swirl stator.

With the Go, the stator has been moved in front to make the scooter as small as physics allow. Hence the name - pre swirl stator. It's technical a snitch less efficient, if you were to go on a test bench you would a 3-5% efficiency difference compared to the Future. Nothing you could realistically feel with your hand.

Now the reason why the rotor says in place, the rotor is a very big magnet (magnetic drive brushless AC motor). So basically it takes a real considerable amount of force to remove the prop, nothing you would be able to remove without trying (very hard). It takes a significant amount of force and two hands to remove the prop, so I'm absolutely not worried it will drop by jumping from a boat.

 

[BoltSnap]

The prop on the Future & Ghost is in front of the stator. Hence the name - post swirl stator.

With the Go, the stator has been moved in front to make the scooter as small as physics allow. Hence the name - pre swirl stator. It's technical a snitch less efficient, if you were to go on a test bench you would a 3-5% efficiency difference compared to the Future. Nothing you could realistically feel with your hand.

Now the reason why the rotor says in place, the rotor is a very big magnet (magnetic drive brushless AC motor). So basically it takes a real considerable amount of force to remove the prop, nothing you would be able to remove without trying (very hard). It takes a significant amount of force and two hands to remove the prop, so I'm absolutely not worried it will drop by jumping from a boat.

Is the GO DPV a "shipping product" yet?

 

[TheScubaPanda]

No, will be early 2023. If you live in the US, feel free to contact me to reserve a spot in the waitlist.

 

[Typhon]

The prop on the Future & Ghost is in front of the stator. Hence the name - post swirl stator.

With the Go, the stator has been moved in front to make the scooter as small as physics allow. Hence the name - pre swirl stator. It's technical a snitch less efficient, if you were to go on a test bench you would a 3-5% efficiency difference compared to the Future. Nothing you could realistically feel with your hand.

To clarify, do you mean "slightly less efficient wrt thrust" or "slightly less efficient to eliminate torque"?

 

[tsjackson]

@tsjackson why is the cost of the battery a matter to you it's part of the price of the scooter, realistically you're not buying a new batteries in yeaaaaars.

Batteries are expensive to manufacture because you have to account for CE and TSA certification for travel, plus engineering and manufacturing.
Plus as I mentioned earlier, you don't need all 6 modules to operate if one fails, and the Seacraft Go is far far more Watt-efficient, you will get muuuuch more range with the same battery capacity. So you really can't compare apples to apples here, they are really two different classes of product.

To my knowledge there's no TSA certification process for battery packs (cells do have DOT testing requirements though), you just need to comply with their regulations around labeling and protection. I'm unsure about CE. But sure, manufacturing and design has costs and they're trying to make their nut just like everyone else.

To me, it just feels bad to pay 6-10x markup on a limited life product - just like it feels bad to pay double the price for a 12ah vs a 9ah dewalt battery pack with the same number of parts and similar manufacturing costs but slightly higher capacity cells. Or how it feels bad that my refrigerator publicly shames me for not replacing my water filter every 6 months with their proprietary $50 filter with a microchip inside so I can't manually reset filter life.

I just really dislike the trend of disproportionate markups on consumables vs the overall product and I'd happily pay more for a product with lower consumable costs or non proprietary parts. That said, I'm probably in the minority as an avid DIY'er and repairer of my own everything. I certainly understand the marketing tactic of charging competitive entry prices and recovering costs elsewhere... it's just not for me.

 

[TheScubaPanda]

To my knowledge there's no TSA certification process for battery packs (cells do have DOT testing requirements though), you just need to comply with their regulations around labeling and protection. I'm unsure about CE. But sure, manufacturing and design has costs and they're trying to make their nut just like everyone else.

To me, it just feels bad to pay 6-10x markup on a limited life product - just like it feels bad to pay double the price for a 12ah vs a 9ah dewalt battery pack with the same number of parts and similar manufacturing costs but slightly higher capacity cells. Or how it feels bad that my refrigerator publicly shames me for not replacing my water filter every 6 months with their proprietary $50 filter with a microchip inside so I can't manually reset filter life.

I just really dislike the trend of disproportionate markups on consumables vs the overall product and I'd happily pay more for a product with lower consumable costs or non proprietary parts. That said, I'm probably in the minority as an avid DIY'er and repairer of my own everything. I certainly understand the marketing tactic of charging competitive entry prices and recovering costs elsewhere... it's just not for me.

DISCLAIMER: No official number below, just somehow "educated" guess. Numbers can be argued, the point is to show that battery cells do not constitute 90% of the price of manufacturing a product like this, even 50% final customer price would be virtually impossible to sell without making a loss.

I think you really don't realize how expensive developing a product can be. Just to give you an example, a simple plastic part a few cm/in across, something super basic. The injection mold will cost easy 4-5K$. These molds are not forever, the wear out over time.

Now make a wild guess of how many parts are inside a DPV and multiply by 5K$ (at least because the price I gave is for a very trivial/basic part).

Now that wouldn't be a problem if you build thousands of DPV a year, spoiler, not the case. So one way or another you have to make up these costs. Oh and I forget, 5k$ is only if you manage to produce the final mold production from the first attempt, if you do any modification to anything (which you will) you of course can pay again for a new mold. So whatever number you came up with first... Increase it by at least 50% ...|

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Now of course the battery needs certification, like the CE certification and an additional certification to be air travel certified UN 38.3.
Let's just say that just this will cost you easy 50-100k$ / certification.
So take a wild guess how many DPVs can be sold per year, amortize over 5 years (maybe less/more), and you have a certification cost per battery module.

Oh and of course, the DPV itself needs to be CE certified too, so let's add another more complex certification on top.

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Long story, these products, just like CCRs, are not high volume (10k+ units/year), you can't just say there's a 6-10x markup. Simply because it's not true.
A good quality cell will cost easy 7-10$/cell (let's just agree that you don't want in your scooter no-name chinese cells at 2$ a piece), I don't think to be widly off in terms of price. Anyone who home build DPV battery packs should be able to confirm.
About 10Wh/cell (depends on the cell.

58 cells required * 8.5$ (middle of range) = +/- 500$ of just cells (edit: this is just a guesstimate, fundamentally even if it was free... It wouldn't dramatically impact the cost of the pack, the point of this message is to highlight that battery cells are a small % of the final price for a good reason).

So just here, we are below your 6-10x range ... So clearly your assumption makes no sense.
Adds the manufacturing costs, shipping costs, import taxes, development costs, testing costs, and certification costs, and paying the dealers & distributors.
I wish you a very good luck to make a significantly cheaper product.

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But you know, it's good news. The battery plug is non proprietary, and perfectly available online. I beg you to do better and show everyone how to offer affordable battery packs. Maybe you can even make good business and make huge money (I mean ... Not if you want to sell your packs for 500$ for sure )

 

[TheScubaPanda]

Future

To clarify, do you mean "slightly less efficient wrt thrust" or "slightly less efficient to eliminate torque"?

• Maximum static thrust (Future & Ghost): 340N
• Maximum static thrust (Go): 260N

No I was talking about torque. Which is barely measurable.
The difference is thrust comes from a smaller AC Brushless motor and slightly smaller prop. Which results in a loss of 0.3m/s top speed.
To be fair, it would be wild to assume same performance from the small travel ready scooter vs an expedition level scooter like the Ghost.

 

[Whitrzac]

I think you really don't realize how expensive developing a product can be. Just to give you an example, a simple plastic part a few cm/in across, something super basic. The injection mold will cost easy 4-5K$. These molds are not forever, the wear out over time.

Now make a wild guess of how many parts are inside a DPV and multiply by 5K$ (at least because the price I gave is for a very trivial/basic part).

Now that wouldn't be a problem if you build thousands of DPV a year, spoiler, not the case. So one way or another you have to make up these costs. Oh and I forget, 5k$ is only if you manage to produce the final mold production from the first attempt, if you do any modification to anything (which you will) you of course can pay again for a new mold. So whatever number you came up with first... Increase it by at least 50% ...|

------------

Now of course the battery needs certification, like the CE certification and an additional certification to be air travel certified UN 38.3.
Let's just say that just this will cost you easy 50-100k$ / certification.
So take a wild guess how many DPVs can be sold per year, amortize over 5 years (maybe less/more), and you have a certification cost per battery module.

Oh and of course, the DPV itself needs to be CE certified too, so let's add another more complex certification on top.

------------
Long story, these products, just like CCRs, are not high volume (10k+ units/year), you can't just say there's a 6-10x markup. Simply because it's not true.
A good quality cell will cost easy 7-10$/cell (let's just agree that you don't want in your scooter no-name chinese cells at 2$ a piece), I don't think to be widly off in terms of price. Anyone who home build DPV battery packs should be able to confirm.
About 10Wh/cell (depends on the cell.

58 cells required * 8.5$ (middle of range) = +/- 500$ of just cells
So just here, we are below your 6-10x range ... So clearly your assumption makes no sense.
Adds the manufacturing costs, shipping costs, import taxes, development costs, testing costs, and certification costs, and paying the dealers & distributors.
I wish you a very good luck to make a significantly cheaper product.

------------

But you know, it's good news. The battery plug is non proprietary, and perfectly available online. I beg you to do better and show everyone how to offer affordable battery packs. Maybe you can even make good business and make huge money (I mean ... Not if you want to sell your packs for 500$ for sure )
View attachment 753740

I havent seen made up numbers that outrageous since the 2020 election.
The samsung 5ah 9.8a cells are $5 retail cost and under $4 when ordering 250+ at a time.