Delivering a sustainable marine powertrain in less than 7 months

Sustainable marine powertrain installed in a boat to enhance efficiency and reduce emissions.

Background

Typical marine powertrains use fossil fuels and simple, well-understood combustion engines. Engineering and delivering a cleaner, greener powertrain is significantly more complex: the process is currently slow, risky and prohibitively expensive. And yet, with the Government’s ‘Net Zero by 2050’ target, marine operators are under growing pressure to implement more sustainable solutions.

Challenge

To deliver a viable prototype for a clean powertrain and demonstration vessel, a multi-faceted project which included:

Understanding the precise requirements of marine operators
Concepting, design, procurement and manufacturing
Rigorous dynamometer and on-water testing
Recommendations and vessel implementation

All within an aggressive timeline.

Solution

PurpleSector applied Formula 1™ techniques and a digital-first design process to accelerate engineering, procurement, and manufacturing.

The team leveraged their motorsport supply chain to rapidly source parts and - when parts weren’t available - designed, manufactured, and tested bespoke solutions. These included: full powertrain transmission, cooling systems, control and interface systems, electrical systems, vessel structure, calibrations, and fuelling.