Boating for everyone, including the environment

Under the headline ‘Boating for everyone’, Volvo Penta used this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in LasVegas to imagine a brave new world for exploring and experiencing life on the water built around accessibility for all.

Volvo Penta joined the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) live for the first time in 2023 and premiering a future-focused universe, where it presented ground-breaking thinking around a potential new leisure boating experience. This future boating experience will be more open and accessible than ever, designed to heighten people’s emotional connection with the water and simultaneously advance sustainability. Through an immersive and visionary exhibit, CES visitors were able to get an exclusive look at how the company imagines the boating experience of tomorrow.

Innovation is embedded in the DNA of Volvo Penta and the company has harnessed this with fast-moving technological advances to create a potential vision for the future that goes way beyond anything previously seen in the marine segment.

The concept is the result of imaginative brainpower from a team at Volvo Penta comprising strategists, business development leaders, digital and service experts, as well as technology designers and engineers, all working in collaboration with colleagues from across the wider Volvo Group.

Johan Inden, President of Volvo Penta’s global marine business, says CES 2023 is the perfect environment to showcase the company’s look to the future. “To re-imagine boating and elevate it, we must remove all conventional boundaries and completely reframe what it is. We want to challenge current thinking and be challenged ourselves. Our concept is designed to spark a dialogue, and we look forward to discussing it at CES. How can we make boating more accessible – to anyone who wants to enjoy it? How can we build a boating universe with unlimited ways to explore and enjoy our waters, while at the same time protecting them? These are exciting questions and we’re at the start of our journey to lead the discussion together with our customers and partners.”

To open the world of boating to a much wider audience, it must become easier. From selecting the boating experience to greater on-board assistance, there are substantial opportunities to change and simplify the ways things are done, built around an easier customer experience with wider appeal.

In the future, Volvo Penta believes that how and why people boat will change, with a more human-centric approach elevating the experience and new technology and business models making it more accessible. Individually tailored experiences o er stronger emotional connections and greater scope for reaching new levels of enjoyment. As part of this, the new customer experience must embrace less experienced boaters and new entrants.

For both first-time boaters and highly skilled enthusiasts, there is a need to create a more personalised experience.

Sustainability will be essential for boating to evolve. Under a call-to-action to move ‘beyond the boat’, Volvo Penta imagines a future on water that can help protect life above and below the surface, as well as giving leisure boaters more sustainable enjoyment. Technology evolution will be a key enabler in bringing Volvo Penta’s ‘Boating for everyone’ concept to life. Here are some highlights:

Boating as a Service could provide a completely new way of enjoying the water, making it easy to access personalised, on-board experiences, so users can choose their own adventure. Boating today requires planning, but Volvo Penta imagines a subscriptionbased, on-demand single-source platform/experience that can re-shape that, way beyond anything today’s boat clubs or shared ownership models o er.

One of the most ground-breaking examples of innovative concepts is what the company calls Volvo Penta Island. This idea to extend the experience beyond the boat is visualised through a floating, independent structure. It begs the question: what if self-sustaining, floating, man-made o shore islands could serve as a platform to take care of the future customer experience?

Above sea level, the islands could o er charging services for electric boats, to help accelerate the transition to electric solutions at sea. They could also act as a boating community hub with facilities such as restaurants, service and support, concierge services and more. These centralised gathering points could allow boaters to relax and explore, while also delivering peace of mind.

Each island could come with its own independent energy production capabilities, harnessing sun, wind and wave power. And they would be mobile too, with the ability to position themselves within easy range of boaters in need of a recharge.

Below sea-level, Volvo Penta Islands could play a powerful role, supporting the company’s desire to push sustainability beyond the boat. For example, hosting an underwater mussel farm which could act as a refuge point for local marine life.

For Volvo Penta, AI and automation are key enablers in delivering boating for everyone. First-time boaters (or those with experience, who simply prefer to enjoy the on-water experience instead of driving) could choose high-level automation. This could be activated at the start of the experience – for example, having the boat automatically deliver itself to the customer meeting point at the marina and then navigating itself out to open water. Through AI, the user could learn about driving gradually. This would ensure peace of mind, but also increase boating competence and confidence steadily. AI could also be integral to delivering more personalised experiences: understanding user preferences and o ering recommendations around experiences, sports, destinations and more.

In addition to imagining a future where electrically powered boats can be recharged on Volvo Penta Islands, the company is also presenting two more exciting concepts.

In addition to imagining a future where electrically powered boats can be recharged on Volvo Penta Islands, the company is also presenting two more exciting concepts.

The first is vessel-to-vessel energy sharing. Imagine if a community of boats in close proximity could redistribute energy according to needs? This could be done through automatic monitoring of energy levels and predictive knowledge of the next step in the boat’s journey. Each boat could then automatically ensure it has su cient charge to reach its next destination.

The second concept involves recharging from mobile, autonomous submersible pods. Nicknamed ‘Stingray’ these pods could carry charge to docked vessels and automatically connect and recharge as needed, without user input. The vessel might simply reach an overnight anchor point, settle for the evening, then the user wakes up to a fully-charged battery.

Harnessing cloud-based infrastructure it could be easier than ever to meet with friends and like-minded boaters both online and on-water. Digital anchoring could enable boats to meet out in the open water and allow gatherers to socialise and share services (while also sharing energy, vessel-to-vessel).

There’s the possibility to evolve the experience further while out on the water, with new features and services downloadable on-demand. Similarly, this technology infrastructure could be used to deliver help and assistance. That might be remote driving assistance or concierge-level guidance – for example, harnessing on-board AI to re-route the vessel around troubling weather conditions.

Travel data from individual boats could also be gathered from surroundings and analysed, generating recommendations based on a user’s profile and current conditions. Volvo Penta believes this kind of functionality has the potential to truly make Boating for everyone.

The holistic focus on sustainability that Volvo Penta imagines in tomorrow’s boating incorporates multiple facets. One of the intriguing proposals it has is for wildlife protection technology. Here, connected vessels send signals to each other when vulnerable sea life is nearby, such as whales and dolphins. Such technology could automatically alert vessels to slow down to boost protection or avoid the area entirely. i. volvopenta.com

Alongside this, Volvo Penta also believes we will see new behaviors in boaters, with many opting to enjoy the lowspeed, near-silent cruising that electric boats can deliver. This would also be less intrusive and disruptive to marine life.