10-05-2025
Port hosts electric ferry demonstration. Can we expect to see that service in Olympia?
About 50 people, including Port of Olympia commissioners and other area elected officials, were on hand Thursday afternoon to see and ride on an electric passenger ferry at the Port Plaza dock on Budd Inlet's West Bay.
The port hosted the event and now the questions begin, including: What would it take to introduce the service here and provide it for destinations north of Olympia?
That work will begin with a market study to determine the demand for such a service, said Mike Reid, the port's community and economic development director.
He's not certain the ultimate destination would be Seattle, but it might be Des Moines, connecting travelers to shuttles or light rail as they make their way to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. By traveling by ferry, travelers could avoid the unpredictability of Interstate 5 traffic and the cost of parking for an extended stay, Reid said.
'I actually think we could be competitive in that market,' he said.
The port's event began at 3 p.m. Meanwhile, the Artemis EF-12 Escape Water Taxi was busy getting its batteries charged at Swantown Marina on East Bay. It then headed north, turned left and came south on West Bay quickly and quietly before it banked hard and pulled up to the Port Plaza dock.
'The vessel combines a number of different technologies,' said David Tyler, co-founder of Artemis Technologies. 'It has electric propulsion units, high-voltage batteries that have been developed from the automotive sector, and hydrofoils, which are basically a wing under the water. As the boat accelerates, it creates lift, pops a boat up out of the water, reducing the drag and providing a huge efficiency saving.'
The vessel on hand was specified for 12 passengers, but can accommodate up to 30, Tyler said. The Belfast-based company is also working on a 150-passenger boat that is expected to be launched later this year.
Although the company is based in Europe, its North American division is in Brooklyn, New York, and the business recently entered into a memorandum of understanding for manufacturing services with Delta Marine, a luxury boat builder in Tukwila.
Here's the important part: The water taxi can travel about 50 nautical miles on a one-hour charge at a speed around 25 knots, he said. At slower speeds, it can cover about 100 miles on the same charge, Tyler said.
Artemis undertook a similar demonstration between Bremerton and Port Orchard, Tyler said. That trip normally takes about 10 minutes, but they completed it in two-and-a-half minutes, spending a couple of dollars in electricity in the process, he said.
'I think once you start to provide a better service to people on the water, both in terms of ride comfort and speed, then you can really start to grow demand for ferry services and build the market,' Tyler said.
For any of this to happen, Port Commissioner Jasmine Vasavada envisions that the port would need help from the state or elsewhere to pay for the upfront costs of the vessel, but would benefit from the lower operating costs of an electric ferry.
Her understanding is that the water taxi on display represents $250,000 in savings to operate here versus a traditional fuel-powered vessel, she said.
The state took steps to help ferry services this past legislative session, said state Rep. Lisa Parshley of Olympia, who was at Thursday's demonstration. House Bill 1923 sought to increase the availability of passenger-only ferries by establishing the Mosquito Fleet Act, so named for a boat-based transportation service that used to exist in Puget Sound.
'Expand the types of entities that can form a passenger-only ferry service district, as well as the locations where they can be formed,' the proposed legislation reads.
Although that bill died in the Senate Transportation Committee, it has not gone away, and lawmakers are expected to revisit it during the next legislative session, Parshley said.
Parshley seemed more than ready to embrace a local ferry service after a recent drive north to the University of Washington in Seattle took four hours.
'It took me two and a half hours to get to the Sea-Tac exit — two and a half freaking hours — and then another hour and a half to get to where I needed to go,' she said.
