Sports boats set out on a voyage to electrify the waters in the same way Tesla electrified the roads

AFLOAT THE SAN JOAQUIN RIVER (AP) — Grant Jeide looked like another dude riding the rollicking waves left in the wake of a 23-foot (7-meter) boat ripping through the water at speeds of up to 40 miles per hour on a river in Northern California's Delta earlier this summer.

But Jeide was performing his aquatic acrobatics behind a different breed of boat — one powered by electricity instead of gasoline. Unencumbered by the din and acrid smell of a combustion engine, the boat's passengers could chat with Jeide as he surfed behind them while they savored the afternoon breeze wafting along the river.

“It's like a playground back there, you feel like you could just ride all day,” exclaimed Jeide, part of the sales team at Arc Boats, a 3-year-old startup embarking on a voyage to electrify the waters in the same way that Tesla led the charge to electrify the roads.

As Tesla did with its first car 16 years ago, Arc Boats is starting with luxurious vessels likely to appeal to a small and affluent audience that isn't reluctant to spend large sums of money to own the latest advances in technology.

They're people like Jonathan Coon, a self-proclaimed geek who got rich after starting 1-800 Contacts in his college dorm room back in the 1990s and can afford to splurge on the sleek, high-powered vessels that Arc Boats is designing and building.

After spending more than $300,000 on a luxury cruiser called Arc One a couple of years ago, Coon is forking over another $258,000 to become the first customer in line to get Arc Sport — a model made for popular aquatic pastimes such as wakeboarding and water skiing.

It's something that Coon wouldn't have considered buying just a few years ago after renting gas-powered boats and riding on the gas-powered boats of friends and hearing about all the hassles that went into maintaining them, along with the cost to fuel up vessels that usually only get a few miles per gallon.

“My view on boats had always been that the best kind of boat is someone else's boat because they can be such nightmares,” Coon, 54, said during an interview from Austin, Texas, where he is overseeing the development of a lakeside community. “But that's not the case now. These guys just nailed every little detail on an electric boat that's just fun to use.”

Arc Boats CEO Mitch Lee is a long-time nerd, too. He grew up in San Jose, California — the cradle of Silicon Valley — where he began trading in currency exchanges when he was just 8 years old. After moving on to Northwestern University to study mechanical engineering, Lee created a personal finance app called Penny that he sold in 2018 to Credit Karma, which is now owned by Intuit.

That deal helped provide Lee with the money to start Arc Boats in Southern California with Ryan Cook, a friend he met at Northwestern. Electrifying boats has been in the back of Lee's mind since Tesla rolled out its first car — the Roadster — in 2008 and he wondered if the technology would eventually work on the boats he grew to love as the son of parents who loved to water ski.

The success of Tesla's expanding line-up of vehicles and the electric cars made by other automakers finally created a supply chain of batteries and other parts needed to electrify boats, too. Arc Boats, founded in 2021, now employs more than 100 employees, including former engineers who worked for Elon Musk at two of his breakthrough companies — Tesla and rocket ship maker SpaceX.

After selling only a handful of the Arc One luxury cruisers, Lee foresees being able to ramp up production to sell hundreds of the Arc Sport model across the U.S. annually.

Besides its home state of California, Arc Boats is targeting other water-loving hot spots such as Texas, Idaho, Minnesota, Michigan and other parts of the country with lots of lakes and people who want to have fun on them. The first Arc Sport is supposed to be delivered to Coon before the end of this year.

“There’s a lot of enthusiasm for a product like this, because it solves all these core pain points that gas boat owners have today,” Lee, 35, said while piloting an Arc Sport on the San Joaquin River near Bethel Island, California. “It’s quieter. It’s far more reliable. It’s way cheaper to operate. You’re not inhaling fumes off of the back of the boat. And we’re doing an interview on a boat where all you hear is the sound of the water.”

A wide range of other boat makers trying to shift away from gas-combustion engines and fuel tanks that can easily cost $300 to $600 to fill for a day traversing a lake or river are making similar arguments. Some, like Sweden's Candela and another California startup, Navier, are selling electric-powered hydrofoil speedboats that probably wouldn't work as well for water skiing or wakeboarding.

A variety of other electric boats, in a range of different styles, are being made by a list of others, including Vision Marine, Ingenity, RS Electric, Duffy Boats and Rand Boats.

Compared to electric cars, the market for electric boats is a drop in the bucket. Worldwide sales of electric boats stood at just $5 billion in 2021, and even with steady double-digit annual growth, are only projected to reach roughly $17 billion by 2031, according to Allied Market Research. In contrast, global sales of electric automobiles surpassed $250 billion last year.

Lee is trying to steer Arc Boats in the same direction that Tesla followed after barely making a dent in the auto market during its formative years. Just like Tesla's vehicles, the Arc Sport will be equipped with a variety of technology that will make the boat akin to a floating computer.

The boat comes with display screens, sensors, Wifi, a hydraulic system for raising and lowering the roof, a 226-kilowatt battery and software that can be updated over the air. Lee envisions those software updates making it possible to provide people who own the Arc Sport with upgrades as the technology improves and potentially makes it possible for the boat to autonomously dock.

The Arc Sport's hefty price tag is also an echo of the Tesla Roadster, which sold for $80,000 to $125,000. Now Tesla sells sedans in the $40,000 range, with ambitions to lower the price even more.

“Over time, we expect our technology to get less expensive,” Lee said of the Arc Sport as he prepared to show off the boat's 500-horsepower motor. “There are a lot of tailwinds here.”

Mitch Lee, co-founder and CEO of Arc Boats, pilots an Arc Sport, an electric boat made by his California company, in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta near Bethel Island, Calif. on Wednesday, July 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

Grant Jeide wake surfs behind an electric sports boat made by California-based Arc Boats on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta near Bethel Island, Calif. on Wednesday, July 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

Mitch Lee, co-founder and CEO of Arc Boats, stands in front of an Arc Sport, an electric boat made by his California company, in Bethel Island, Calif. on Wednesday, July 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

An electric sports boat made by California-based Arc Boats floats on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta near Bethel Island, Calif. on Wednesday, July 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

Mitch Lee, co-founder and CEO of Arc Boats, steps off an Arc Sport, an electric boat made by his California company, in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta near Bethel Island, Calif. on July 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

Grant Jeide wake surfs behind an electric sports boat made by California-based Arc Boats on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta near Bethel Island, Calif. on Wednesday, July 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Sphere, Las Vegas' transformational new masterpiece, stole the show Saturday night at UFC 306, but Merab Dvalishvili put on a performance not to be forgotten in capturing the bantamweight championship with a unanimous decision over Sean O'Malley.

The judges scored it 49-46, 48-47 and 48-47 in favor of Dvalishvili (18-4), a 33-year-old from the country of Georgia. He used a ground-and-pound attack to control most of the action against O'Malley (18-2).

O'Malley, 29, who lives in Phoenix, was a slight -125 favorite at BetMGM Sportsbook.

Valentina Shevchenko reclaimed the women's flyweight championship with all three judges awarding her a 50-45 victory over Alexa Grasso in the co-main event.

This was the third consecutive meeting between the two after Grasso took Shevchenko's belt in the first match. The second was a draw.

The third one wasn't closer, with the 36-year-old Shevchenko (24-4-1) using a ground-and-pound strategy to win all three rounds over 31-year-old Grasso (16-4-1) on the judges' cards.

“It's so huge," said Shevchenko, who is from Kyrgyzstan. "It like a dream come true fighting in the Sphere.”

This show at the Sphere was unlike any show in the UFC's history, taking full advantage of the 160,000-square-foot high-definition LED screen to create an outer-space type feel as the pay-per-view portion of the card was about to begin.

UFC President Dana White called this card his “love letter to Mexico,” and mini stories of the neighboring country's history and culture as part of a celebration of the country’s Independence Day weekend were told on the screen throughout the evening. One created the illusion the arena was moving as the video played out.

Seven Mexican fighters, including Grasso, populated the card, and chants from the crowd of “Mexico” broke out several times.

Aztec pyramids seeming to hover over one contest in the octagon changed from night to morning. Another fight took place with a Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) holiday scene that included dressed up male and female skeletons lighting up the screen. Other matches had similar scenes dominating the background.

The screen was used throughout to introduce a tell-of-the-tape of each fighter, and highlights were shown on the building's exterior.

White has said this is a one-and-done given the overwhelming undertaking to put together the show as well as the roughly $20 million cost. To help pay for it, White secured a title sponsor for the first time for one of his PPV cards, making the official name Riyadh Season Noche UFC.

But White has waffled as the event approached, and it's possible the UFC will have future cards at the Sphere, those the organization is contractually obligated to MGM Resorts, which includes T-Mobile Arena. An exception was made for this night and perhaps there will be more.

T-Mobile had its own tribute to Mexican Independence Day three miles away with Canelo Alvarez winning by unanimous decision as the headline fighter.

UFC's in-house production team crew worked with Antigravity Academy production led by founder and Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Carlos López Estrada to put together this event.

Heavyweight champion Jon Jones, considered by many to be the greatest fighter in UFC history, will face Stipe Miocic in UFC 309 on Nov. 16 at New York's Madison Square Garden. Jones has not fought since moving up from light heavyweight to claim the heavyweight crown with a first-round submission of Ciryl Gane on March 4, 2023.

Jones, who was in the crowd wearing a black cowboy hat, and Miocic were scheduled to fight last year, but a pectoral injury forced Jones to postpone.

AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports

Attendees watch Yazmin Jauregui fights Ketlen Souza in a women's strawweight mixed martial arts bout during UFC 306 at the Sphere, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024, in Las Vegas. (Wade Vandervort/Las Vegas Sun via AP)

Attendees wait for the main mixed martial arts event during UFC 306 at the Sphere, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024, in Las Vegas. (Wade Vandervort/Las Vegas Sun via AP)

Valentina Shevchenko, right, fights Alexa Grasso in a women's flyweight mixed martial arts title bout during UFC 306 at the Sphere, Saturday, Sep. 14, 2024, in Las Vegas. (Wade Vandervort/Las Vegas Sun via AP)

Valentina Shevchenko celebrates after defeating Alexa Grasso in a women's flyweight mixed martial arts title bout during UFC 306 at the Sphere, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024, in Las Vegas. (Wade Vandervort/Las Vegas Sun via AP)

Sean O'Malley and Merab Dvalishvili appear on screen during UFC 306 at the Sphere, Saturday, Sep. 14, 2024, in Las Vegas. (Wade Vandervort/Las Vegas Sun via AP)