The end is near: we'll all be electric in <5 years

Takuma just announced integrated mast/fuse electric foil on Instagram. The technology will get better and better until it’s near perfect just like it did with electric skateboards, electric bikes, one-wheels etc.

What is everyone’s prediction for the state of foiling in 5 years?

Here’s mine: Everyone zipping around the lineup ripping ocean energy connecting with little bursts from a hand controller using ultralight and responsive foils/boards similar to current gear but with integrated electric drives that are super low friction when on waves (ie folding prop type technology).

The integration on the Takuma looks really nice, but its still large enough that unpowered riding will probably be quite draggy.

Foildrive mounted high on the mast still looks more interesting, but the integration is pretty shoddy. Im surprised Lift, Takuma, or Flite wouldn’t offer a product in this direction. They’ve clearly got the tech sorted out, and I have to imagine they could efficiently adapt it to introduce this as another product.

I guess it becomes a question of whether unpowered riding will command a meaningful enough market share for one of the major companies to get on board. Right now everything is oriented towards powered riding with significant compromise for unpowered riding.

I saw a few guys riding efoils last weekend and my god they just looked so aesthetically terrible (nose up riding - right on the verge of stalling, feet as wide as a sawhorse, poo stance, 12 foot leashes dragging behind them). These guys weren’t ever going to depower or see any waves, but most importantly they were having a blast and I think they were precisely the target market.

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Water jet propulsion integrated into the fuse like a fighter jet, until then not interested

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I agree, It’ll be just like electric skateboards, where nobody regular skateboards anymore. Can’t wait for the new 2023 boosted boards electric half pipe event at the X games! The favored winner this year is a dentist from Ohio who’s just super rad!

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E-bikes are really taking over my area…

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“When I was your age we had hydrofoils without any engines on them! Yes we had to jump up and down to propel ourselves, we called it ‘pumping’. We would have to buy the newest foils every year because it was so hard to pump around and still be able to turn and surf them so they would have to keep engineering better ones to make it possible…”

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It’s like I tell my 6 year old when we’re riding MTB and she asks about motorized bikes and scooters and shit like that. We don’t allow that kind of weakness in our family.

Also, if you’re talking about areas where those motorized vehicles are dominating, it’s all transportation appliances. Not a lot of people are doing any kind of cool freestyle on electric anything. I’m not saying it’s not fun e skating around your neighborhood but nobody is taking it to a skate park just like it’s fun to scoop around the lake but it doesn’t belong in the surf.

And before anybody says anything about it, I’ll give anybody who’s over 60 or some how physically impaired a pass on the E foil but everyone else can screw.

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Well, I guess that explains the previously inexplicable design choices they made with the kujira 2. I think I like the setup of www.stokefoiling.com product better aside from the terrifying lack of a prop guard. I want the motor out of the water once I’m going. I know exactly where I would use it, but I will probably hold out until the inevitable jet version comes out. I’ll probably need the time to start saving anyway.

Which design choices are you thinking of?

Changing to a top bolted rear wing and not transitioning to a more solid wing/fuse integration similar to Unifoil. Both seem like they would be necessary for this product to work.

You think if the tail was bottom mounted it would be in the foil wake?

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At the very least you’d end up with a tail so much lower that you increase the risk of reef strikes.

I’ll probably be the last person to own an ebike or efoil. Ebike/efoil greatly reduces the health benefits.

I’ve rented both ebike and efoil in the past and had a good time. But I’ll pass on buying one.

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Maybe I,m a lazy mofo but i,m really interested in the foildrive thing.
Not because I don,t wanna put the effort in paddling, but I think it can help/allows using a smaller foil for DW to get up in our soft/slow waves and ride stuff that without the extra push is simply not rideable.

Regarding Ebikes:
I live in the Netherlands wich is really flat so it is debatable if we mountainbike in our hills with a whopping 150m height :wink: , but my wife got herself an ebike last year.
Not because she is lazy, she runs half a marathon twice a week but even when giving 110% she can,t never ever keep the same pace as I do.
With here on an Ebike we have fun together while before I was waiting every few minutes or had to ride a too low pace to be fun and she needed to go flat out all the time.

I read lots of studies that say that it DOESNT reduces the health benefits but it is a matter of how you use it.

I’m not really interested in getting an e-bike or motorized foil. I’m only 65 so maybe I’ll need one when I get old.

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I am 56, and i
Really like the challenge of pumping. It forces you to actually be in good shape, and i like the idea of improving this technique. If pumping was easy, it wouldn’t interest me.

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I’m not saying anyone should desire a CURRENT eFoil or that the current eFoils will take over, I’m predicting the future eFoils will take over.

The stigma will gradually dissolve when the rippers are able to ride tiny super fun maneuverable foils all the time having a blast shredding then giving little energy boosts to get back outside to the set waves. It’s going to be a real scene out there and it’s coming in <5 years.

Just a prediction. This is coming from someone without any electric toys (except my car), nor do I have a desire to get something electric now.

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efoil nah. e-mtb also nah.

Cruiser/folding ebike to get around town? Yes 100%. I’m not trying to exercise I’m trying to get somewhere easily.

e bikes are a replacement for driving, not cycling.

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Battery and motor tech will continue to improve with massive investment driven by cellphone and vehicle industry. So there’s no doubt that efoils will get lighter faster safer. But like cellphones and ebikes i do not see efouls getting cheaper. At 3k (Foildrive) to 14k (Fliteboard) USD they will stay irrelevant to me. If i had that kind of money i would always choose to buy a seconds hand jetski and a quiver of foils.

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More options = more time on water. After a couple of lessons I started winging in July 2021, bought a Fliteboard Pro in mid-2021 followed by a Foil Drive which helped me learn to SUP-foil and got me out on water with my daughter as she learned on Fliteboard. Here in San Francisco prone-foiling options are limited so I would have made little progress if I hadn’t had the other options. I’m 63 with relatively limited time so scoring 40-50 waves on Flite Ultra in a one hour session is worth the price of entry to me.

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