The boats on Amsterdam's iconic canals will all be electrically-driven by 2025, thanks to an initiative begun two years ago. It is probably the first move to electrify all the boats on a canal network, but it is not the first electrification of a canal boat. There have been canal boats powered from overhead cables since the 1890s though there appear to be very few such systems surviving. At the same time, an automotive boat was not commercially viable because the massive lead-acid batteries which were then the only widely-available power source took up valuable cargo space.
An enterprising leisure narrow boat operator on the then recently restored Stratford-on-Avon canal launched the Electric Blue at the back end of last century, clearly named for one of the tropical morpho species collected in the Stratford Butterfly Farm. As to what led to its demise, I can find no answer on the Web now. (If anyone out there has any links, I would be grateful for them.) Perhaps there was just not enough space for the users in those days before the lighter and more compact lithium-ion systems were developed. Anyway, these are clearly the future and good luck to Amsterdam.
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