I just heard a KCBS radio news report that the ICE ferry which transports visitors to Angel Island, in the middle of San Francisco Bay, will be converted to electric power next year. What I found interesting is that they mentioned that it requires 30 kWh for the ferry to travel each mile. It sounds like that is going to be a big and expensive battery pack. I think it is something like a 10 mile trip to get to the island and another 10 miles back.
I've been taking long bike rides (25 so far) weekly from Mtn View, up Skyline Dr or Hwy 1, circumnavigating SF, taking the mid-day ferries to Treasure Island, Oakland, Alameda Seaplane or Harbor Bay, then returning via Dumbarton or Alviso.
For Treasure Island, I generally have the small ferry all to myself, with my own personal captain and crew ($5). For the other destinations, I have had large ferries all to myself (personal captain, multiple crew and maintenance persons) ($4.50). There have been as many as 8 people at times.
The ferries are operating at an astounding loss. According to their
2022 annual report, the management's entire plans are:
1. Milk covid as a scapegoat as long as possible.
2. Talk about electrification $$$$ for the purpose of political favor.
3. Get more them poor people on board for the purpose of political favor.
4. Associate with beer. Everyone likes beer! Beer events.
5. Ridership up 164% due to self proclaimed brilliant recovery plan (run ferries). Only a factor of 7 remaining before they're back to their original massively subsidized levels of 2019.
I really enjoy the ferry and take advantage of it often. But under these conditions, electrifying is unconscionable, and as you imply, generally infeasible.
Someone please stop the brainless politicians with our purse strings. They can't perform simple calculations on the back of an envelope. Or they can, but don't care because of politics. Every day there are two set of 4 back-to-back trips, so 32 miles range required, 40 with margin, @30 kWh/mi = 1.2 MWh battery capacity, needing charging twice a day at 500 kW. The thing will be out of service most of the time as the chargers break and saltwater gets to the electronics and motors, so they'll be paying extravagant maintenance constantly while running the real ferries. A dramatically foreseeable disaster.
