You already know how your outboard works – the sound it makes when the choke has been out too long, which side it has to lie on in the back of the car. So this is not an argument for electric propulsion. Think of it as a plain account of the first season after the gas motor is gone. Some things you stop doing, some you start, and a few nobody warns you about.
The First Trip Out
The Starting Ritual Just Isn't There
On a small gas four-stroke the sequence is fixed and you know it in your hands. Fuel valve open. Vent screw on the tank cap open. Choke out. Tiller throttle to the start mark. Then pull, and if the motor has sat three weeks, pull again before it catches and you push the choke back in.
The electric version has three steps. Battery seated, key switch on, twist the throttle. There is no cold-start difference between the first outing in May and the tenth in August.
Throttle, and Reverse Without Spinning the Motor
Reverse is where the change registers first. Many small gas tillers in this class run forward and neutral only, so backing off a dock means turning the whole powerhead around on its steering lock – a small choreography you have learned to do without thinking. On an electric tiller you twist the grip the other way. Same hand, same grip, nothing lifted. A spec-sheet detail that changes every docking you do for the rest of the season.
The Display Becomes Something You Actually Read
A gas tiller tells you nothing. There is a tank you can look into and a rough sense of how long you have been running.
An electric tiller carries a colour display showing power draw in watts, remaining runtime and remaining range, calculated against how you are driving at that moment. Ease off the throttle and the runtime figure climbs while you watch. No combustion outboard gives you that feedback loop.
One caveat before you order. The remote-control versions have no boost mode, and their menus give you less than the tiller's do. ePropulsion says it expects updated controls later in 2026.
The Skill You Stop Needing
The starting sequence was knowledge – how much choke a cold morning wanted, the particular pull that worked when the fuel had sat too long. That knowledge is now worth nothing, and the first few outings can feel oddly empty, because your hands keep reaching for a job that no longer exists.
Carrying It
The Weight Doesn't Drop, It Splits
A typical 3.5 hp gas four-stroke in short-shaft trim is around 18 kg (40 lb) dry. An ePropulsion Spirit 2 with its battery attached is 20.6 kg (45 lb) in the XS shaft, 20.8 kg (46 lb) in the S and 21 kg (46 lb) in the L, before the transom bracket goes on. Electric does not win on total weight here – the Spirit 2 is a couple of kilograms heavier.
What changes is that the 20.8 kg arrives in two pieces. The Spirit Battery Ultra is 10.4 kg (23 lb) and the motor is 10.2 to 10.7 kg (22 to 24 lb). The heaviest single thing you lift is roughly 10 kg instead of 18.
| 3.5 hp gas outboard (typical) | Spirit 2 (short shaft) | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 18 kg (40 lb) | 20.8 kg (46 lb) |
| Heaviest single piece | 18 kg (40 lb) | 10.4 kg (23 lb) |
| Pieces | 1 | 2 |
| Prep before transport | Drain, correct orientation | None |
Two Trips Instead of One Lift
The battery lifts off without tools and without cables. No connector to unplug, no wire to coil. The transom bracket comes off as well, so the load down to the dock breaks into parts one person can manage without the awkward high lift over a gunwale.
Nothing to Drain First
A four-stroke going into a car needs its cooling water drained and has to lie on its correct side, or it puts oil into the carpet. The electric motor goes in the back seat the way it came off the transom.
Charging Is Logistics, Not Technology
The technology is quickly dealt with – eight hours on the standard charger, two on the fast one, from an ordinary household outlet. What actually takes figuring out is where that outlet is, and there are three common versions of the problem.
A garage at home is the easy case – the battery comes off the transom, plugs in overnight, and is ready before you are. A cottage is usually fine, occasionally not, depending on what else is sharing the circuit.
A marina slip is the case worth settling before you buy. Shore power at the slip solves it. Without shore power, and with the boat in the water all season, you are carrying 10.4 kg up the dock and back every time you want a full pack – or buying a second battery so one can charge while the other runs. Manageable, but better known on the day you sign for the slip than in July.
Who Shouldn't Switch
- You run long passages where refuelling capacity is the constraint. When the day is measured in how far you get between top-ups, a second can beats a second battery.
- There is no power at your slip or your launch. Everything else about the motor is beside the point if there is nowhere practical to plug in.
- You need to be back out in ten minutes. Guiding, work use, a hull that runs multiple trips a day. Charge time does not bend.
- Light seasonal use on a tight budget. Twenty hours a year gives the purchase premium nothing to pay itself back with. Buy a good used four-stroke.
Two related facts, neither of which softens the four above. A Pleasure Craft Operator Card is required to operate any powered pleasure craft in Canada, electric included. And some inland waters restrict combustion engines outright, which turns the question around completely – that is covered on our page on where combustion engines are restricted.
If none of those four is you, the rest of this article is what the season actually feels like.
What the Silence Actually Does
Conversation, and Hearing Your Own Hull
ePropulsion describes its motors as running under 60 dB at full throttle. In practice that means two people at opposite ends of a 3.6 m (12 ft) tender hold a normal conversation with the motor running, and nobody cuts the throttle to hear a question.
The other half is what you start hearing. Hull slap. Water off the transom. Wind in the rigging, if there is any. Those sounds were there the whole time and the engine sat on top of them.
Fish
A brushless motor puts less noise into the water than a combustion powerhead, and there is no fuel film on the surface behind you at idle. Whether that puts more fish in the boat is not something we can tell you.
The Part Nobody Mentions: You're Quiet to Other Boats Too
A gas outboard announces you. A paddler crossing the channel, or an angler with their back turned, hears you long before they see you – and they move without ever thinking about it.
An electric outboard does not do that. In a narrow channel, on a busy weekend, coming up behind a kayak, you are now the one who has to assume you have not been noticed. That is not something this category likes to bring up, and it is the most useful thing to know before your first crowded Saturday.
The Season Changes Shape
What You Stop Doing in October
The list on a small four-stroke is short and none of it is optional. The cooling system gets flushed with fresh water, and whatever fuel is left gets stabilizer – ethanol in Canadian pump gasoline will gum up carburettor jets over a winter. Residual water has to come out as well, so nothing freezes in the leg. Then the annual service. Roughly 0.3 L of 10W-30, about 180 ml of 80W-90 gear oil, a fresh spark plug gapped to 0.8–0.9 mm, and a look at the fuel filter screen. And every 300 hours or three years the water pump impeller comes out whether it looks worn or not, because the rubber loses elasticity sitting still.
On a motor this size the servicing bill over a season runs several times the fuel bill, which is most of the reason the numbers land where they do when you work out what it costs to own one over fifteen years.
What You Start Doing Instead
- The anode is still there and still needs inspecting – galvanic corrosion does not care what drives the propeller.
- Salt needs rinsing off as before. IP67 sealing keeps water out of the motor; it does nothing about salt sitting on the fittings.
- The battery connector is a wear item. Keep it clean and dry and treat it the way you would treat any high-current contact.
- The pack needs somewhere to spend the winter, and that somewhere is not an unheated shed in February.
Winter Storage Is Now a State-of-Charge Decision
October used to be a set of tasks. Now it is one decision, made correctly.
A lithium pack should not go into five months of storage full, and it should not go in empty. The manufacturer specifies a state-of-charge window and a temperature range for wherever the pack sits. The Spirit Battery Ultra is rated at 1,000 cycles to 80% state of health, and that figure assumes it is stored and charged the way the manual says. Take the number from the Spirit Battery Ultra user manual rather than from a forum thread.
Thinking in Watts Instead of Litres
A gas motor this size carries about a litre in its integral tank and burns about 0.65 L/h at cruise – roughly ninety minutes, after which you top up from a can in the time it takes to open the cap.
An electric pack holds 1,539 Wh, and the display tells you what is left more accurately than any fuel gauge ever has. But a number on a screen is not a litre you can see sloshing, and in the first season that difference weighs on you more than it logically should. Early outings tend to come back with more in the pack than the day needed – an unfamiliar number makes people cautious. Give it a season; that is calibration, not a fault in the motor. Figures by hull type and speed are in our piece on range and runtime.
What You Give Up
Refuelling in Ninety Seconds
A can and a funnel put you back at full range in about the time it takes to chat with whoever is on the next dock. Independent testing has framed the gap as ten minutes at a gas dock against up to twelve hours on a standard charger – four to six with a fast charger that costs extra. The Spirit 2 does better, at eight hours and two, but the shape of the trade does not change.
Extending Range by Carrying More
Gas range extends for $30 and no thought at all. On the electric side it means buying hardware. The Spirit 2 does accept external packs – the E60 at 3,072 Wh, the E163 at 8,345 Wh, and third-party 48 V systems – and for anyone planning long days, that is the realistic route.
A Long Service Life and a Deep Used Market
Small four-strokes routinely stay in service well past a decade with basic maintenance. Practical Sailor puts marine lithium replacement inside ten years, and replacing a pack is not a small line item. The used market is younger on the electric side as well. It exists – we run one ourselves, and every used electric motor we sell is inspected and battery-tested at cell level before it carries a warranty – but decades of small gas outboards have built a depth of choice that electric has not had time to match. None of this argues against switching – it is just part of the full picture.
One Thing a Gas Outboard Can't Do at All
Under sail, with the leg down and the prop turning in the flow, the Spirit 2 generates up to 380 W at 10 knots – the pack charges while you sail. For sailors, that changes the arithmetic entirely, because the motor stops being a fixed budget of energy. If you do not sail, it should carry no weight in your decision.
The Emissions Question, With Actual Numbers
The figures that circulate in this category are usually far larger than the arithmetic supports. Burning a litre of gasoline releases roughly 2.3 kg of CO₂, and a 3.5 hp gas motor uses about 0.65 L/h at cruise.
- 50 hours a season: 32.5 litres, about 75 kg of CO₂
- 150 hours a season: 97.5 litres, about 224 kg of CO₂
Those numbers are modest for a motor this size, and anyone can check the arithmetic. A claim in the thousands of pounds a year would need close to 1,970 litres – about 3,000 running hours at this motor's cruise burn – and nobody puts 3,000 hours on a 3.5 hp tender motor in a year.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do electric outboards need maintenance?
Yes, on a different schedule. The oil changes, gear oil, spark plugs and impeller replacements are gone. What remains is an anode to inspect, a battery connector to keep clean and dry, a rinse after saltwater, and a state-of-charge decision before winter storage. Less work than a four-stroke, though not zero.
Are electric outboards actually lighter than gas ones?
Not necessarily. An ePropulsion Spirit 2 with its battery weighs 20.6 to 21 kg (45 to 46 lb) against roughly 18 kg (40 lb) for a comparable 3.5 hp gas outboard. The difference is distribution rather than total mass: the electric motor separates into two pieces of about 10 kg each, so the heaviest single lift is smaller.
Do you have to winterize an electric outboard?
There is no flushing, fuel stabilizer or draining to do. Winter storage becomes a battery question instead. The pack should be held at the state of charge and within the temperature range specified in its user manual, somewhere protected. The motor itself needs a freshwater rinse and a dry place to sit.
How long does it take to charge an electric outboard?
A Spirit Battery Ultra takes about eight hours on the standard charger and about two hours on ePropulsion's fast charger, both from an ordinary household outlet. In practice the harder question is where the outlet is rather than how long the charge takes, since a garage, a cottage and a marina slip give three different answers.
Can you charge an electric outboard at a marina?
If the slip has shore power, yes, from a standard outlet. If it does not, the battery has to come off the boat and travel to a powered outlet, which with a Spirit Battery Ultra means carrying 10.4 kg (23 lb) along the dock. This is worth confirming with the marina office before the season starts.
Do you still need a Pleasure Craft Operator Card with an electric motor?
Yes. In Canada a Pleasure Craft Operator Card is required to operate a powered pleasure craft, and the requirement applies to electric motors exactly as it does to gas. Switching propulsion does not exempt an operator from carrying proof of competency on board.
Related from M-Oceans
- Electric outboard motors – the full range we carry, with specifications and shaft options
- Converting an existing boat – repowering a hull rather than replacing an outboard