It’s that time of the year: the Cannes Film Festival. Away from the glitz and glamour, it has been an eventful year for the show. Whether it be the awards themselves, numerous protests, or the threat of power cuts by the French energy union, there’s been something to generate headlines. Keen to get in on the action, BMW, together with boat-maker Tyde, have used the timing of the event to launch a new collaboration, dubbed “The Icon.”
The Icon is a fully-electric, 43-ft luxury watercraft that isn’t being pitched as just another design study but instead is a production-ready example of sustainable high-end mobility. The boat features six batteries from BMW’s i division for a total of 240 kWh sent to a pair of 100 kW electric motors.
BMW and Tyde say The Icon has a range in excess of 50 nautical miles (100 km / 62 miles) and has an operating speed of 24 knots, (44 km/h / 28 mph), while its top speed is 30 knots (56 km/h / 35 mph). It features a Yacht-racing inspired hydrofoil to help it reach those speeds while reducing the energy requirement by up to 80 percent compared with a conventional design.
Related: Brabus Has A New Boat With Twin 4.8-Liter V8s And 900 HP
BMW Group subsidiary ‘Designworks’ designed the boat, and it features a prism-like transparent structure with a large lounge entrance surrounded by glass. Inside, there’s deep-pile carpet, rotating seats, and a dedicated tablet-based infotainment system. There’s an onboard Dolby Atmos sound system, and BMW has brought back movie music maestro Hans Zimmer to compose fake engine sounds and function tones.
If you choose to captain this EV boat, you’re presented with a yoke-stye wheel while all functions and vitals can be operated and viewed via the 32-inch 6k touchscreen display. Love it or hate it, the system will be familiar to those who drive the latest BMWs, with the control interface borrowing features from iDrive and BMW Operating System 8.
Unsurprisingly there’s no mention of a price or even if The Icon will ever see production – after all, “production ready” and having enough demand for production are two very different things. However, BMW says that The Icon is “underpinned by a platform concept offering comprehensive adaptability to individual wishes and needs,” perhaps indicating that if someone was serious enough, the bones of the design could form the basis for a specially commissioned EV watercraft.
