"Can you imagine flying over waves for less than € 1 per hour?" stands in the promotional video on Youtube, with almost half a million views after only a month and a half. Functional, ergonomically designed, and extremely elegant 2,99 metres long vessel is driven by an electric motor with less than 5 h.p.; special foils give the vessel the buoyancy to lift above the surface and almost fly above water. The battery allows a range of up to 100 km on a single charge. At the Internautica Fair, Quadrofoil won the award for the Nautical Project of the Year, and it was noticed at the Slovenian Innovation Forum, as well as abroad.
The company from Slovenska Bistrica for now offers two versions: Q2A Electric at the price of € 15 thousand, and Q2S Electric equipped with a stronger motor and a more powerful battery at the price of € 22,500. The watercraft can reach the speed of up to 40 km/h (21 knots). We chatted with Marjan Rožman, Director of the company.
Your Quadrofoil watercraft became known all over the world, without extensive promotion. You are already getting advance orders. Obviously, you are ending this year on an optimistic note…
I agree. Our Quadrofoil watercraft in fact became a world attraction, thanks to uniqueness of the product, and our extremely successful, well prepared media campaign which we launched in the end of October. At the same time we started accepting advance orders, and the interest in our watercraft has exceeded our expectations. The number of advance orders is growing daily, and it seems that the 100 watercratfs model Q2S Electric Limited Edition will be sold out soon. In one month only more than 440,000 people viewed our promotional video online; and taking into account the other websites as well, the number of viewers was over 2.5 million.
How many watercrafts are planned for production in the coming year?
Of course the number depends on the advance orders, but organisationally and technologically we are capable of fulfilling all the advance orders between 100 to 300 units, and even more if required.
Will the production remain in Slovenska Bistrica? Is it true that you have already received offers from abroad, including tax relief?
Being local patriots, we have stayed in Slovenia, and we hope that we will be able to establish the required organisational and technological infrastructure needed for large serial production in Slovenska Bistrica. Unfortunately, most start up project have problems in finding an investor when an investor is most needed, especially in Slovenia, and especially within the real sector, in production. Investors from abroad months ago offered to us excellent conditions and tax relief were we to transfer our production abroad. I hope our decision to persist in Slovenia was correct. But as a result of our media campaign, we were contacted by a number of investors from different countries of the world, who showed interest in supporting us during further development of our project. Let’s wait and see… We might be surprised.
Which materials are used for your watercraft?
We used composite materials, and aluminium.
Is Quadrofoil really entirely the fruit of Slovenian knowledge?
The Quadrofoil project is entirely the result of work of a team of Slovenian experts, led by Simon Pivec, Director of R & D of Quadrofoil company, author of the idea and co-creator of the watercraft. The team consists of a number of economic experts, members of the research institutes of Maribor and Ljubljana Universities, and certain companies, where the company Impol 2000 from Slovenska Bistrica should be especially mentioned, participating in the project as research supplier of materials, and top-quality aluminium components.
Quadrofoil has a special shape, it is elegant, aerodynamic; is it true that humpback whale inspired the design of certain parts of the vessel?
Klemen Tavčar, Ermin Kosovel and Miloš Velimirovič are top industrial designers whose efforts resulted into a truly exceptional design of Quadrofoil watercraft. The vessel is extremely functional, ergonomic, and very eye-catching. The inspiration for design of separate parts of the vessel came from the wide range of nature, and visionary insight into future. This watercraft is an extraordinary designer achievement, acknowledged both within the nautical industry, and outside the nautical world.
How long will the battery last, and how long does it need to recharge?
At optimal use of the watercraft the battery allows more than one hour of sailing, and it needs two hours to recharge. But the development in the field of batteries is very fast, and soon in future we expect much longer performance time, and much shorter recharging time.