The brand
Candela is the name that comes up first whenever electric boats are discussed seriously. Gustav Hasselskog founded the Stockholm company in 2014 with one clear idea: solve the biggest weakness of the electric boat, its short range, with physics rather than with an ever bigger battery. The answer was the hydrofoil. Lift the hull out of the water and most of the drag goes with it, so the same pack carries the boat several times as far. The C-7 entered production in 2019 and became the first fully electric hydrofoil boat anywhere to be built in series.
Candela now leads the category worldwide. By March 2026 the company had raised €129 million in total from investors, with the IFC, part of the World Bank Group, joining the most recent round. The order book was already past 65 boats at that point, which is why a second factory is going up: from 2027 it can build 70 ferries a year. TIME magazine picked the P-12 Shuttle as one of the best inventions of 2025. Everything is designed and built in Stockholm by a team of more than 200 people.
The lineup splits cleanly in two. The C-8 is the daycruiser aimed at private owners; the P-12 is a passenger vessel built for urban water transport. Both rest on the same technical foundation: the actively controlled carbon foils and the in-house C-POD drive. That shared base is a large part of why the company can move as fast as it does, since work on the ferry feeds straight back into the leisure boat and the other way around.
Candela in action
Official images and details: candela.com ↗
Why the boat flies: the technology
Everything about a Candela starts with the active foil control. Carbon foils sit under the hull, and an onboard computer trims their angle of attack a hundred times a second: sensors in the bow read the waves ahead, and the system keeps correcting on height, roll and pitch data. The result is closer to a carriage on an invisible rail than to a boat. No slamming, no pounding, and according to the manufacturer even passengers who normally get seasick cope well with it.
The physics behind that is simple enough to picture. A conventional hull spends its energy on two things: dragging a large wetted surface through the water, and pushing a wave system along in front of and behind itself. Foils cut away almost all of that at once, because the only parts still in the water are the slim struts and the wings themselves. On a Candela the transition happens at somewhere between 16 and 18 knots, and from that point on the ride gets quieter and smoother the faster you go, which is the opposite of what most powerboat owners are used to.
The efficiency numbers are just as striking. According to Candela, foiling cuts energy use by 80 percent compared with a conventional planing hull. Propulsion comes from the company’s own C-POD: two gearless, directly water-cooled electric motors in a torpedo-shaped pod, turning counter-rotating propellers. There are no oil changes and no winterizing routine, and the service interval runs to 3,000 operating hours.
None of that stayed on paper. In September 2024 the C-8 became the first electric boat to cross the Baltic Sea, running from Stockholm to Mariehamn in the Åland Islands and back, 150 nautical miles in a single day. The trip used 213 kWh of electricity, worth roughly €40 to €50, while the gasoline-powered escort boat burned close to €750 of fuel over the same distance.
Models
Candela C-8: the flying daycruiser
The C-8 is the flagship of the leisure range: an 8.5 meter daycruiser with a carbon hull, built in three versions (DC Interior with a cabin, T-Top, and a fully enclosed Hardtop). Energy comes from a 69 kWh Polestar battery, good for 57 nautical miles (just over 105 km) at a 22-knot cruise, with a top speed of 27 knots. There is room for five guests alongside the driver. Charging takes 6.5 hours on 11 kW AC, or half an hour from 10 to 80 percent on a 135 kW DC fast charger.
What that buys you is a boat that behaves differently from anything at the same length. Cruising at 22 knots is not a sprint on a C-8 but the normal way to travel, since the range figure is quoted at exactly that speed rather than at a displacement crawl. The low wake counts too, both for the boats you pass and for the shorelines you run along.
Pricing is firmly premium. There is no official list price: at launch the press reported a base price of about €290,000, while current European listings run between €335,000 and €393,000. For a binding figure, ask the manufacturer directly.
The first model, the C-7 of 2019, has since been discontinued and turns up only on the used market. Its 40 kWh battery took it 50 nautical miles at 22 knots, and in truth it was the boat that proved the electric hydrofoil works as a concept rather than a show model.
Candela P-12: the flying ferry
The P-12is the bigger story: the world’s first electric hydrofoil ferry in scheduled service. The first vessel, named “Nova”, entered service in Stockholm on October 29, 2024, covering the 15 km between Tappström and City Hall in roughly half an hour, and running to a daily timetable since 2025. The Shuttle version carries 30 passengers, cruises at 25 knots and travels up to 40 nautical miles per charge; the 378 kWh battery accepts up to 300 kW DC and goes from 10 to 85 percent in about 45 minutes. The plusher Voyager variant is aimed at resort transfers, with a maximum of twelve guests.
Orders are arriving from everywhere. Berlin is putting a P-12 on the Spree, Mumbai has ordered eleven vessels for urban water transport, and further projects are on the list in New Zealand, at Lake Tahoe and in Saudi Arabia. Anyone looking for electric public transport on the water that actually runs to a timetable will not find a more mature answer right now.
For a private buyer the ferry matters more than it might seem. A vessel in daily commercial service piles up operating hours far faster than a leisure boat ever will, and it does so on the same foils and the same C-POD drive that sit under the C-8.
Candela on inland lakes?
On paper, few boats fit protected water better. Plenty of inland lakes around the world restrict or ban combustion engines while still allowing pure electric propulsion, and Candela turns the classic weakness of the electric boat, its range, into its strongest suit. The foiling C-8 goes further on less energy, and its shallow draft, the quiet on board and the near total absence of wake all count in its favor around fragile shorelines and shallow habitats. Rules differ by country and often by individual lake or stretch of coast, so check what applies where you plan to ride.
Two practical points remain. The first is charging: the C-8 takes up to 135 kW on a DC charger, but fast chargers at that power are still the exception in marinas, where slower AC pedestals are the norm. Our electric boat guide goes through what charging on the water looks like today. The second is how you actually buy one: Candela sells directly in Europe and skips the classic dealer network, so a viewing and a sea trial are arranged with the yard itself.
How Candela compares
In the electric boat market Candela is the technological yardstick. Most builders electrify a conventional hull; the Swedes went after the physics instead. That gives the brand a different character from the other yards profiled on Foilfun. Fellow Swedish builder X Shore does the pared-back electric dayboat on a conventional hull, Austrian yard Frauscher comes at it from luxury and traditional boatbuilding, and Candela chases maximum efficiency and range by leaving the water altogether.
On price the C-8 runs in the upper third of the field; on technology it stands alone, because no other series-built daycruiser currently rides on actively controlled foils. We compare the direct challengers, from Vessev to Navier, on the page about electric foiling boats. If foiling hulls interest you beyond this one brand, our hydrofoil boat guide introduces the rest of the field, and the electric boat page gives you the wider picture, from drivetrains to charging.
