Washington’s first battery ferry ready to enter service in July

Kitsap Sun ^ | 7/11/2025 | Tom Banse

[verum ago]

Washington’s first plug-in ferry will begin shuttling cars and passengers across Puget Sound by the end of next week.

Gov. Bob Ferguson made the announcement Thursday during a celebratory demonstration lap around Elliott Bay on the ferry Wenatchee, concluding a challenging conversion to hybrid-electric propulsion over the past 22 months.

*SNIP*

“Washington state is a great visionary state. It deserves a great visionary boat and it has got one today,” Inslee exulted.

*SNIP*

The complicated shore power infrastructure is in the design phase for the downtown Seattle, Bainbridge, Bremerton, Kingston and Clinton terminals. The Seattle terminal’s plug-in charging arm and power supply will probably be completed first, but not before 2029, according to a presentation to the state House Transportation Committee on Tuesday.

[mass55th]

They probably should have stuck to horsepower to move that thing. I mean, horsepower by horses walking a treadmill to power the paddle wheels. Safer, and likely more effective.

[mass55th]

Sounds like a terrible way to die. People should probably make sure they have a good life insurance policy before they get on that thing.

[MortMan]

Submarines never ran on Lithium Ion batteries.

[doc maverick]

You ought to write a book,cbpdiii
I’d read it!

[norwaypinesavage]

It would be far safer and more efficient (less diesel fuel) if they ran the electric motors directly from the diesel generators and didn’t waste all the fuel hauling, charging, and cycling the batteries. It would be much safer, too. How would you like to ride while stuck in your car in your car on a ferry that is charging Lion batteries.

[Mlheureux]

News flash! Water and batteries don’t mix.

[alternatives?]

To be fully electric do they need more batteries than a diesel/electric combo?

[KSCITYBOY]

btt

[Sirius Lee]

Water and batteries don’t mix.

Don't tell generations of bubbleheads.

[dforest]

You mean it doesn’t have a cord? LOL

[waredbird]

You are exactly correct and carrying the extra weight makes it less efficient. And, if the batteries were fully charged, how many trips could the ferry make with the diesel turned off? More like old diesel submarine technology now that I think about it. I’m surprised that they didn’t put solar panels on it. But it’s Seattle and maybe some outside advisor showed them how much sunshine to expect.

[DownInFlames]

Looking for the Bee to fool me.

[Bernard]

I had a hybrid Fusion that I really liked. Got rid of it because I switched back to an SUV - climbing in and out of a conventional sedan was getting to be a problem for my wife and me. Great car with great mileage.

Wanted to buy a similar hybrid Escape, but Ford decided to not build one. Too bad; it would have been a real-world solution.

[If You Want It Fixed - Fix It]

Calm down maga-ites, it’s got 52 oars just in case.

(Low heeled 40+ yo office ladies breath sigh of relief)

[Mastador1]

What could go wrong? Batteries, water, 🎇🔥😱

[verum ago]

I had a hybrid Fusion that I really liked
...
Great car with great mileage.

It's not the hybrid part of this that's dumb. Honestly, a short-hop (<9 miles) ferry like this is a great application of that. Straight mechanically coupled diesels are great if run at constant, optimal speed over great distances- i.e. trans-oceanic runs. But this ferry does short runs, with a lot of acceleration and deceleration, even outside of the inevitable maneuvering around traffic in Puget Sound. Plus, when it's at a dock it has to constantly push against it, which is murderously inefficient for a mechanical-transmission diesel.

Put simply, there's a reason even rail locomotives (which run at much more constant throttle than this ferry) have converted to diesel-electric "hybrid" power.

The problem here is the batteries- this thing is hauling around a gazillion pounds of useless deadweight for no advantage, because it can't charge them without using its diesels- it would obviously be more efficient just to run as a 'regular' hybrid, without the unnecessary efficiency losses of converting diesel to battery, then battery to propulsion, instead of just going diesel to electric propulsion (while running the diesel mains at their most efficient RPMs because the coupling to propulsion is already electric and RPM independent).

Pair that with the fact that they an eighth of a BILLION dollars on a system that can't actually be used for at least 4 more years- and that number is the likely wildly-optimistic number provided by Lefty politicians, A lá California high speed rail- and remember, batteries have a shelf life...

So to be quite explicit: what I'm mocking here isn't the diesel/electric hybrid system- that's an honest improvement, though very questionable given the cost compared to the cost of a new vessel with a much longer service life.

What I'm objecting to is the removal of half the ship's engine power in favor of a battery system that they literally cannot use without recharging it with the remaining two diesels- indefinitely at this point.

Would you have approved someone proposing you overhaul your hybrid Fusion with a battery bank that costs $30,000 and literally cannot be charged except by idling the gasoline engine?