Electric marine start-up Arc Boat (Arc) has adopted the Siemens Xcelerator industry software suite to design and manufacture high-performance, fully electric boats.

Founded in 2021, Arc is a venture-backed start-up based in Los Angeles, California. The company designs and manufactures everything for its electric boats in-house. This includes battery packs, powertrain systems, thermal control systems and software.

The company’s first product, the Arc One was designed, built and delivered in just two years with Siemens Xcelerator, with zero-emissions.

The Arc team had experience using Siemens software at other companies, so Siemens Xcelerator was a natural choice to be the company’s technology platform. According to Ryan Cook, co-founder and CTO at Arc: “We thought if Siemens Xcelerator is going to be our long-term software, we might as well just start with it so we don’t have to migrate later.”

The ability to build complex parameterised models in Siemens’ NX software from the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio has allowed Arc to develop adaptable parametric 3D models that support rapid iteration design, build, test and redesign process.

“There’s a lot of parameters involved in hull design – deadrise, beam at chine, keel angle, etc.– so we used NX to parameterise them all. With our fully parametric hull model, we would build one boat, gauge performance, collect data and tweak one or two parameters and then build a second boat based on what we learned,” said Cook. “Fast forward to today and we’re even more sophisticated because we know the performance characteristics we want out of the vehicle. With a given centre of gravity and the type of shape we want to go with, we can do it in one shot with NX.”

Arc uses Siemens’ Simcenter™ software to simulate its products – a particular challenge when looking to disrupt an industry that continues to rely on gas-powered propulsion systems and long-established marine engineering principles. Arc’s focus on all-electric propulsion brings new design, engineering and manufacturing challenges.

Arc also uses Simcenter software to optimise the centre of gravity, which is challenging due to the heavy battery pack, and to optimise across the composite hull, deck and hard top to remove weight. This lightweighting is critical to achieving required performance. Simcenter software also enables the team to carry out smaller-scale part structural, vibration and thermal analysis work across the entire boat.

Arc added Teamcenter software for Product lifecycle Management (PLM) during development of its second product, the Arc Sport, to optimise its product and production data management as the complexity of both its product and supply chain increased. Today, the company is expanding its operations in the recreational and wake boating industries and has announced its first steps into the commercial marine industry and expanded line of recreational boats including the Arc Coast, a ‘centre console’ all-electric boat that targets fishing and other water activities.

“We’re moving very quickly and it’s a lot of fun to try and apply some fundamental engineering principles to the marine industry and see if we can come up with something better. Siemens Xcelerator helps us to get there quicker, develop new category defining products that delight our customers and create the electrification revolution we want to see in the marine industry,” said Cook.