A local startup founded by four Waterloo Engineering alumni expects to deliver its first zero-emissions, high-performance electric boats to early adopter customers next year.
Mike Peasgood (BASc ’98 and MASc ’04, systems design engineering, PhD ’08, mechanical engineering), April Blaylock (BASc ’04 and MASc ’07, mechanical engineering), Paul Masojc (BASc ’05, mechanical engineering) and Jerry Mailloux (BASc ’01, electrical engineering) launched ENVGO in 2021. The company has developed a recreational electric boat that can travel above water on hydrofoils.
ENVGO promotes its $400,000 boats, which can use the same battery technology as electric vehicles, as both high-performance and environmentally sustainable. They can reach speeds of up to 80 km/h with a range of up to 130 kilometres, leave no wake, produce no emissions and make little noise.
Peasgood, Blaylock, Masojc and Mailloux all previously worked at Aeryon Labs, a successful Waterloo startup that was founded in 2007 to build drones.
“Taking a lot of the experience we have from the drone space making things fly, we are building electric, hydro-foiling boats, which also fly — putting a wing underneath the boat makes the boat fly over the water,” Peasgood, the CEO of ENVGO, said in a news story published by the Waterloo Region Record.