I've seen very little about Elco drives, other then their own website (which might be biased). They have been around forever, but their designs look pretty old school as well. The systems come across as "tried and true" and appear to be bulletproof (maybe even literally).
But as I have said before, it is easy to electric power a boat, but harder to electric power a boat well. Since range and usability are primary concerns of many boaters, efficient systems will keep the battery size, weight and cost manageable. One could put a washing machine motor in a skiff and fill the boat with batteries and it would motor around slowly for hours, maybe days. But you wouldn't have room for gear or other people and the boat wouldn't be safe in any sort of weather, so what would be the point?
I believe that an electric drive should be as efficient as possible to keep the inevitable compromises compared to ICE systems as small as possible. I haven't seen any meaningful performance data on Elco systems. I think that they are built on basic brushed DC technology (no idea about the controllers) but we've seen that the PMAC systems are often 20-30 percent more efficient than traditional DC drives. We've also seen technology applied in Torqeedo motors is considerably more efficient than "tried and true" trolling motors or basic converted outboards. All of them will push a boat, the higher tech systems push a boat better.
Fair winds,
Eric
Marina del Rey, CA
--- In electricboats@yahoogroups.com, "Jerry Barth" <shredderf16@...> wrote:
>
> There is a repower article in Wooden Boats this month where they used a 40KW
> Elco motor. I haven't seen anyone on the list using these, didn't know the
> company was still around. Anyway, the guy is happy with his setup although
> to me it seems it's probably twice as much power as he really needs.
>
> Jerry Barth
>
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