CES: Brunswick debuts new electric motors for bigger boats
Brunswick's CEO says incentives and products like subscription services are helping with buyers juggling higher costs and interest rates.
Brunswick (BC), the biggest recreational boat maker in the world, isn’t sitting pat waiting for the future to happen. CEO David Foulkes has been pushing the boating and marine tech company into the future — and the company showed off its latest wares at CES this week in Las Vegas.
Brunswick set up its “Marina of the Future” on the CES show floor, featuring boats from its brands Boston Whaler, Sea Ray, and Mercury Marine, along with electric boats, marine engines, charging stations, and its "eFoil" flying surfboards. Brunswick debuted three boats, 12 engines, and four fliteboards at the tech fest.
Among the products making their debut are two new electric outboard motors, part of the Avator line of electric outboards. Outboard motors are better suited for electric power, since they are used for lower-power applications like propelling small pond boats or tender boats in a harbor. All five of the Avator motors are on display — the 7.5e, 20e, 35e, 75e, and 110e models. The 20e and 35e are 2024 CES Innovation Award winners.
“[The new motors are] building out the top of the range with higher power and more battery life, moving from smaller boats to slightly larger boats,” Foulkes said from Brunswick’s sprawling display. “We're not in a position where we can replace some of the core models with electric outboards, but we're certainly getting there as the electric technology evolves and battery technology evolves; we're getting into bigger and bigger models and boats.”
While Brunswick pushes into the future, the realities of today — at least from a business point of view — are a little uncertain. Higher prices, higher interest rates, and geopolitical tensions are pushing high-end boat purchases back, and Brunswick has had to adjust.
“We certainly introduced incentives through the back half of last year, including discounting, promotional activities; we're expanding those as we need to,” Foulkes said. “The retail market in the US was down about 5% versus previous year, so not really down a lot, and we're expecting next year to be essentially flat to this year, given that the consumer environment is essentially somewhat unchanged at least in the first half, with the potential hopefully for some [interest rate] reductions in the second half.”
While Foulkes said some of the company’s higher-end buyers purchase in cash and aren’t sensitive to rates, the vast majority of buyers are feeling the pinch. One way to alleviate those concerns is through fractional ownership and subscription services. That’s where Brunswick’s Freedom Boat Club subscription model comes into play. Brunswick has 400 locations worldwide — across the US, Canada, Europe, and Australia. Foulkes describes it as a “golf club,” where members pay monthly dues to have access to boats in their home area as well as others, including different countries.
“Because you're not owning the boat, you're not subject to these financing rate increases that we saw over the last year. So the stability of pricing in Freedom [Boat Club] has been much more stable, and so it's continuing to grow very strongly,” Foulkes said.
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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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