Frauscher

The Frauscher story

Frauscher is an Austrian boatyard, building today in Ohlsdorf near Gmunden, and for generations the name has meant a particular kind of quiet lakeside luxury. What separates it from almost every other premium yard is the timeline: Frauscher has been building electric boats since 1955, decades before electric propulsion became fashionable on the water. Today the yard builds premium day boats and sport boats, and the lineup keeps expanding.

If the term day boat is new to you, it describes a boat built for hours rather than nights: open or mostly open, seating for a group, a swim platform, no real accommodation below. You take it out after work or for an afternoon, and you come back to the same berth. That use pattern is why electric propulsion suits the category so well. A day boat rarely needs the range of a cruiser, and it gets used in exactly the places where engine noise is least welcome.

On the Austrian lakes where the company grew up, combustion engines are restricted in many places. That constraint shaped the product long before it became a selling point. The rhythm it produced travels well: short outings, an anchor stop for a swim in deep water, an unhurried run back into the sunset with family or friends. Plenty of lakes and sheltered bays elsewhere work the same way.

The clearest measure of what the name is worth comes from the car industry. Porsche developed its electric sports boats together with Frauscher, and the Frauscher x Porsche name now covers the 850 Fantom, the 850 Fantom Air and the 790 Spectre. ABT Sportsline took a similar route with Marian, another Austrian yard; the result is the M 800-R.

The decades of experience are more than a marketing line, but not every electric Frauscher was drawn as one. Porsche says the 850 Fantom Air is based on the 858 Fantom Air, a day cruiser Frauscher sells with a MerCruiser V8, and keeps its 8.67 m hull almost unchanged on the outside. Frauscher's own timeline introduces the electric 740 Mirage in 2014 together with the 747 Mirage motorboat, and both are 7.47 m long. The 790 Spectre is different. Frauscher says it was engineered from the ground up around the Porsche electric drive, on a newly developed lightweight hull. When a boat is drawn that way, the hull, the weight distribution and the drivetrain are matched to one another, instead of an electric system being pushed into a design that was laid out around a combustion engine. Underway you hear water and wind, not an engine. On a premium day boat that quiet is the whole point.

Continuity counts for buyers too. A brand that has been in the market for decades and keeps broadening its range is more likely to still have a service network, a parts supply and a functioning resale market in ten years than a newcomer is. At this price level that is not a footnote.

Models

Three boats matter most on the electric side of the catalog. The 650 Alassio is the first of them: a classic, elegant lake day boat whose model page prints no price (checked 12 September 2026). It is not where the electric range starts, since the compact 610 San Remo sits below it, but of these three it is the least showy, and for a lot of buyers that is the appeal.

The 740 Mirage Air shows the sporting side of the brand. Frauscher publishes a ladder for it, not a single value: motor output from 50 to 137 kW and a battery of 48 to 63 kWh, per the model page read on 12 September 2026, and no price. That page names no drivetrain supplier, so we name none either. What the ladder tells you is that the boat's character is set by the configuration you order. At the bottom of it you get 50 kW and 48 kWh, which is where the Alassio's own ladder (4.3 to 50 kW, 12 to 48 kWh) tops out, in a boat that starts at 2,000 kg against 950 kg for the Alassio. At the top you get 137 kW and 63 kWh, and the open, center-console layout stays. Frauscher's range table on that page, read on 5 October 2026, gives the base version a top speed of 33 km/h and the strongest one 55 km/h, or 45 km/h on its 90 kW of continuous power. The page gives no acceleration figure for either.

At the top sit the Frauscher x Porsche 850 Fantom and Fantom Air, running the drivetrain from the Porsche Macan EV: 400 kW of peak output (around 540 hp), 170 kW continuous and a 100 kWh battery, as frauscherxporsche.com lists them (read on 12 September 2026). The peak is for a burst; over an hour at a steady speed the continuous figure is the one that counts. Frauscher publishes no price for these boats either. Porsche's launch releases put the Fantom Air First Edition from €561,700 net on 8 October 2023 and the Fantom from €572,934 net on 9 December 2024, launch figures for two different versions, not a list price you could order from today. Borrowing a production automotive powertrain is a deliberate choice. The battery, the rear-axle motor of the Macan Turbo and the control electronics reach the yard as pre-assembled modules, adapted for the water by a manufacturer that builds the underlying parts for the production Macan, which is a very different engineering problem from assembling a marine drivetrain from scratch.

Together the three form a clear ladder: the 650 Alassio as the calm, elegant entry, the 740 Mirage Air as the sporting middle, the 850 Fantom as technology flagship and status symbol. The catalog runs wider than these three, though. The 790 Spectre, built with Porsche and shown for the first time in January 2026, measures 7.92 m and carries the same 170 kW continuous and 400 kW peak on 100 kWh, good for 95 km/h and 45 km at cruising speed by the maker’s figures. In July 2026 it set a new speed record at the Monaco Energy Boat Challenge, averaging 51.05 knots against the 49.84 knots the 850 Fantom had managed there in 2025. The 610 San Remo, which Frauscher calls the smallest model in its electric range, is another electric day boat in the family. The 1414 Demon Air sits outside it, in the motorboat range, with two 480 HP Volvo Penta D6 engines. Specification and availability change frequently, so treat the table below as a starting point and check the current details with a dealer.

Which model fits you

Behind the catch-all phrase “electric day boat” sit three characters and three kinds of owner. Before you look at the price, answer a different question: how, and with whom, will you actually spend your time on the water?

• Relaxed family boating. If your season is built around swim stops, sunset cruises and a comfortable, unhurried pace, the straightforward character of the 650 Alassio is the closest match. Only the more compact 610 San Remo sits below it in the electric range, and for many buyers the Alassio is where the search ends.
• Sporting performance. If acceleration and handling matter to you as well, the 740 Mirage Air with up to 137 kW in its strongest configuration is the sportier route, and you give up none of the premium comfort to get there.
• Prestige and technology. If the brand experience and the engineering are the point, the Frauscher x Porsche 850 Fantom with its Macan EV drivetrain sits at the top of the range.

Model choice is not purely a matter of taste, though. What counts is how many people usually come along, how long your outings run, and where the boat will live. A short afternoon of swimming asks for a different size than all-day touring. Berth dimensions settle more of this than buyers expect: measure the slip, the approach and the height of any bridge on the way out before you commit to a length.

Trailering is worth thinking through at the same time. A boat you can put on a trailer opens up several bodies of water in a season; one that lives permanently in a marina gives you a simpler life but ties you to one place. If you are comparing brands, look at the other premium electric yards as well, among them Sweden’s X Shore and Marian from Austria.

Charging and ownership in practice

Two questions shape daily life with an electric boat: how far can I go, and where do I charge? Range is not a fixed number. It depends heavily on speed and on how you drive. At a calm displacement pace a charge lasts far longer than it does at sustained full throttle on the plane. It is the same gap an electric car shows between city traffic and highway cruising. Ask the dealer for realistic figures for the model you want and the way you intend to use it.

Charging is easiest when the boat lives where the power is. Plugged in at the berth, most configurations fill overnight, provided the pedestal can feed the charger on board. Frauscher lists 9 kW charging for the 48 kWh Mirage Air and 6.6 kW AC for the 63 kWh version, and Porsche gives up to 11 kW AC for the 100 kWh Fantom; a 48 kWh Alassio on its standard 3 kW charger, though, needs about 16 hours from empty unless you order the 9 kW fast charging pack. Once that is settled, charging comes off the list of things you have to plan around. Shore power is standard in a growing number of marinas, and dedicated marine charge points are spreading. Confirm in advance that your marina has enough available capacity at your berth for a boat in this class, because an old pedestal sized for a fridge and a kettle will not do the job.

Day to day, electric propulsion is simply less work. No oil changes, no elaborate end-of-season engine routine, far fewer moving parts to wear. Attention shifts instead to battery care and a sensible winter layup: a stable state of charge, a dry boat and somewhere the pack is not sitting through hard freezes. Your dealer and yard can give you guidance that fits the specific model, and following it is what protects the largest single component in the boat.

Running costs land differently from a gasoline boat, but they do not vanish. Electricity is cheaper per hour than fuel in most places, and there is less scheduled work. Berthing, storage, hull cleaning, antifouling where you need it and insurance are unchanged by the drivetrain, and on a premium boat those are the line items that add up across a season.

Before you buy: the practical points

A decision of this size does not start at the price tag, it starts on the water. A few things worth thinking through before you commit to a model:

• Take a sea trial. In this class the experience on the water decides it, not the spec sheet. Go out in conditions close to the ones you actually boat in, get the boat up to speed, and try the docking maneuvers you will do every weekend. Appointments run through the manufacturer and its dealers.
• Match the model to your boating life. Think about how many people come along, how long you stay out and where the boat lives. The criteria from “Which model fits you” apply here again, and berth dimensions are the constraint people notice last and regret first.
• Budget past the quoted price. Options, taxes, delivery, berthing, charging, winter storage and insurance all land on top. These vary by model and by harbor, and in some markets import duties and registration fees add a meaningful layer.
• Check the service and dealer network. On a premium boat, a reachable representative with a workshop in your region is worth a great deal. Ask specifically who handles battery and drivetrain work, what the response time looks like in season, and how warranty claims are processed where you are.
• Ask about the battery in writing. Warranty length, retained-capacity terms, what a replacement costs and who is certified to fit one. On an electric boat these answers matter more than almost anything else on the order form.

And take a broad look around before you sign. Frauscher is one of the defining names in premium electric day boats, but it is not the only one. For the wider market picture, start with our electric boat guide, and our article on hydrofoil boats opens the door to the “flying” ride feel that comes from lifting a hull clear of the water altogether.