EvNerds
Efoil, Italy? Challenge accepted
Back in June EvNerds was invited to check out the new NEPTUN X efoil ( electric hydrofoil surfboard ) by eFoilFly European office.
This electric foil board is part of the booming electric watersports market. It’s a surfboard with hydrofoil and electric motor that lets you go above water surface without feeling any traction! Without noise and wind breezing around you, it makes you feel like you are flying!
Those who seek adrenaline when there are no waves around and live in countries where efoils do not present a luxury item or companies that make their business by renting the efoils, choose high quality products. Products with tested and branded batteries, high performance specs, easy battery removal, high-speed charging.
Renting efoils go up to crazy 100 – 120 euros for a 15-25 minutes ride, and a 1200 Euros for a 1 day drive on Ibiza. It sounds crazy, but when you try an efoil, you want to ride it again and again.
Read more if you want to know the NEPTUN X advantages and more about e-foiling
What kind of efoil is NEPTUN X
NEPTUN X is an efoil that peaks at 12Kw with continuous power of 3 kW, water cooling controller, 2,3 kWh battery with SAMSUNG cells ( Samsung INR18650-30Q ), wireless throttle and nifty led light on the board that shows battery percentage left for efoiling!
NEPTUN X is made in China and unlike many other China made boards, this company did not want to compete only with the price, they wanted to make the board that can compete with the best boards in the world!
They spent 2 and a half years making the wing design and we will let you know later why this was so important.
Venice Boat Show NEPTUN X UNVEIL
The particular event where the international unveil took place was Venice Boat Show ( This is also the first time Venice organized a boat show as well ).
We went to meet the creators of NEPTUN X, as well as the European team that helps with customer communication and Eu sales for this China-based company.
We will go into details later on but for now, let us tell you more about reasons why we went there in the first place ( because we love Italian spaghetti of course).
Why? Because we wanted to first to cover emerging company eFoilFly
Electric skateboards, ebikes, and electric motorcycles had so many countless innovations and models in 2019.
It was even hard to cover all these stories ( we missed a dozen of them ). Mainstream electric foils in our opinion did not change so much this year.
The two main companies on the international efoil market are Liftfoil and Fliteboard.
Besides those two, a few Chinese manufacturers are making some low priced e-boards that are not up to a task of high-speed flying, charging and not going more than 30 – 45 min of flight ( not to mention the quality of these boards and battery + controller components ).
The DIY efoil scene, however, is innovative, but they make the boards mostly for personal pleasure.
The only efoil board that seems to have what it takes on paper to compete or even dominate the big 2 was NEPTUN X!
SPECS: 45 Km/h speed, 2 hours charging with 25 amp Charger, up to 80 min of runtime!
The funny thing about that is; nobody covered this story yet so we accepted the invitation and went to see and ride this board ourselves!
The only reason why we knew NEPTUN X existed is that Zvonko Vrbatović from EU office called us up and asked if we want to know more about it.
NEPTUN X efoil BODY, MAST AND WING DESIGN
The entire board body is made out of fiberglass, carbon, EPS foam and resin.
We asked Jim: Why not only carbon?
Jim from eFoilFly explained that they did not use Carbon-only for the body because their material combination has HEATING advantages over carbon-only-body. He explained further on:
One thing is to have a working board and to ride it, but sometimes the board will be left with the battery on the sun and you want to keep it at lower temperatures if you can
We went to other stands in Venice and touched other premium efoils on the same sun temperature ( around 32 degrees celsius ). The difference was amazing: NEPTUN X had a normal temperature and we kept our hands on the board without feeling any significant heat, while other ( will not say what boards ) were very hot! Those boards are probably not comfortable to carry if not washed by water first.
Mast and the wing is made fully out of carbon fiber. It can be taken off from the board very easily for transport.
The wing itself as we already told you took more than two years to be made. Bill from eFoilFly explained that they wanted to create one board that fits all! One board that does not need any wing change for beginner or pro level.The wing was designed as a shark tail. It has super lift power as well as direction control.
When you get on the NEPTUN X, you will feel like there is a self-adjustment direction control for up and down. You do not have to try so hard to control it. That is one of the advantages of our wing design. Combined with the peak power that electric motor is pushing with acceleration you just get more stability and it is easy to get comfortable with it. You can concentrate on doing turns, tricks and jumps on high speeds and less on keeping the board’s body out of the water!
The e-board can speed up to 45 km/h without any problem. This left us thinking that this is not the maximum speed. Neptun team explained that they limited the speed for general sales and use.
Because of our little talk, they made an unrestricted version ( 50 Km/h ) just for the show in Abu Dhabi fair later on, but currently are concentrated on NEPTUN X regular sales and production.
NEPTUN X Ride Video
There was little time in Venice for driving the board , but we took the board outside of the Venice and Jim went 45 Km/h on this shoot. We made some videos, but those will be released next month in a EvNerds Youtube blog video about eFoilFly. Until eFoilFly finds time and makes new videos, some of our videos were sent to Croatian distributor that made a small intro for Neptun X. Check it out!
OTHER PARTS AND COMPONENTS
The efoil board comes with high speed 25A charger. The SAMSUNG 48V 48 Ah battery is enclosed in a abs box with handle and has a nice battery percentage test button. That is a nice feature as you can actually see how much it was charged without putting the battery back into the board.
What can we confirm: The specifications are real. The board charges under 2 hours. THE POWER IS BRUTAL! On videos, it does not look that way, but this board can lift more than stated 130 Kg for sure. We estimate around 150 Kg for keeping it in riding mode above water. Quality is great. The boards are in stock, so it is possible to buy them. The recommended retail price is 12.000 euros with VAT and Shipping. Can’t wait to see this board become top 3 used boards in 2020.!
Riding X was easy after first 15 minutes of failing. Marko Bettini tried the board in Croatia after Venice show. He was able to stand on it, sit on it. But he was scared to go above 25-30 Km/h. He promised to go again and we are all waiting for April to try it again.
Next month a Video blog about NEPTUN X. Interested parties should check out eFoilFly website or Instagram.
Credit to Elektro Pogon ( Ev seller ) from Croatia for some of the pictures and information in this article
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