Alexandre Mongeon: Electric Boats Go Full Throttle | Ep 1242

Welcome to Corazon Technologies, home of the Digital Executive Podcast. Do you work in emerging tech, working on something innovative, maybe an entrepreneur? Apply to be a guest at www.corazon.com forward slash brand. Welcome to the Digital Executive. Today's guest is Alexander Mangione. Alexandre Mangion is a visionary leader and socially responsible entrepreneur with over 25 years of extensive experience in the marine industry. As the co-founder and CEO of Vision Marine Technologies, Alexandre has been the driving force in the transition towards sustainable boating by leveraging his deep expertise in electrification and advanced battery technology. He currently oversees the entire life cycle of the company's flagship innovations, specifically spearheading the design, manufacturing, and production of the groundbreaking e-motion technology and high-performance electric boats. His leadership ensures that the company remains at the forefront of marine innovation while maintaining a commitment to environmental stewardship. Well, good afternoon, Alex. Welcome to the show. Thank you for having me today. Absolutely, my friend. I appreciate it. And you're hailing out of Delray, Florida today. I'm in Kansas City, so I appreciate you traversing time zones and calendars to get here, and that just makes my day. So thank you. And Alex, let's jump into your first question here. You've spent more than 25 years in the marine industry, from competitive speedboat racing to leading Vision Marine Technologies. What experience has shaped your journey to become a pioneer in electric boating? There's a few of them. One of the most important one is meeting Ian Bruce, Olympic sailor, and designing my first electric boat back then in 2014 and doing water sport in the back of that boat at 40 miles per hour. And lately, I also met Roger Moore in 2016, founder of Nautical Ventures, and he was showing me all the marine retail space were. So meeting Ian Bruce Roger Moore and then working with McLaren Engineering and testing for two years in a row our technology from 2021 to 2023 was something very important for us And lately we did the world fastest electric boat with Sean Torrente, world champion in the F1. So all those, I would say, past 15, 16 years of work were very important for me. So this is where most of the knowledge became very important for me. Thank you. I appreciate that. And you do have quite a bit of experience in this space. You know, you talked about Olympic boating and sailing. You worked with McLaren, which is a big deal. Obviously, they're in this sports space. But having the world's fastest electric boat is obviously a big feat. We know how boating is. Generally, it's combustion engines. But I like how you're taking not only electric technology, but you're using it in the racing world as well. So thank you for that backstory. Alex, Vision Marine Technologies is driving the transition to innovative boating. What inspired you to focus on electrification in any industry traditionally dominated by combustion engines? Electrification for us was not a concept. It was a commercial opportunities that was actually we were already executing on back then by building smaller electric boats doing six, seven miles per hour. We saw early that the marine industry was behind and customers were expecting the market to move faster. The low maintenance solution and the cap was the demand was already there, but the lack of high performance propulsion system were not there. So we saw the opportunity as early as 2015 for the market there by replacing slowly the combustion engine by the year 2030, 2035. So we were the early adapter back then. That's what that was, was that's what's motivating us. So obviously there was a little bit of a demand there, as you said. And I do remember some smaller, like in the fishing industry, a lot of small type of electric motors. Obviously, there is a demand for doing much more as far as recreational activities. And in your case, you're making boats that break records for its class. So I appreciate what you doing there to bring this to market But also it a 20 billion business by 2030 So it something pretty decent as well on the market side Thank you. I appreciate that statistic. It is growing, as you know, in electric vehicles and boats. Marine equipment is expanding as well. Alex, let's talk about your e-motion technology. It's at the core of your innovation. What were the biggest challenges in scaling this high voltage system from prototype to industrial production? The key challenges were transitioning from innovation to retributable, scalable production. We did 25 different integration over the past five years on brand new boats from different manufacturers. Marine usage is a bit different than the car. It's demanding and the environment is a bit different. The thermal condition, the salt water's exposures, the safety standard. and we had to scale quickly and production. And the prototype is pretty easy to do, but moving into production, it's a different ballgame. That's what we had focused over the past three years by working with McLaren, Linamar, and also BRP, Bombardier. So that was the most challenging part and this is where we are. So we were also have to navigate it into an immature supply chain in higher voltage marine space. As you mentioned, you only were seeing small trolling motors of 48 or 36 volt we have a 700 volt architecture architecture so we went from a prototype phase as the years 2018-19 to a production phase and we are delivering system as we speak but the focus today is discipline execution and code controlling costs and ensuring variability and scaling production with our demand in our dealership network the technology is there it's not a prototype and now we're scaling production. Thank you. I know that is challenging manufacturing, mass producing, but you're doing something that's high performance. So there is, there are a lot of different ways and more challenges in that manufacturing space. And you did mention some of those, obviously the safety, saltwater, et cetera. It's not like a traditional vehicle manufacturing but again controlling costs and scaling is you got to find that right balance So I talked to many entrepreneurs on the podcast about this in the manufacturing space and it's certainly something that needs to be highlighted. So Alex, the last question I have today as we look ahead to the future, how do you see the future of marine transportation evolving over the next decade? And what role will electrification and sustainable innovation play in reshaping the industry? Well, we see the marine electrification following the car or the automotive industry. It's a gradual adoption. The acceleration and the economics, the user experience is aligning with what we do. The near term, the growth is driven by the demand. And we are actually pushing pretty, I would say, heavily on presenting the product. And there's a demand for that. For smaller boats, between 20 to 30 feet, there's a demand. And as the batteries are performing better and better and the price is being readdressed to consumer, we see the market expanding. What matters the most for our investors now is to execute and do the delivery of our system through a dealership network. And we are scaling also some different types of power from our technology as well, combined with new AI, let's say apps with our product. So our strategy is to build around owning the customer relationship, controlling the platform and converting innovation into revenues. Thank you. Appreciate that. So definitely you've got a lot going on in the marketing space. You're trying to gain that market share. And you talked about the gradual adoption over the years, I think generally. But that demand is growing. And you did highlight that the higher demand on the boats right now is that 20 to 30 foot size range. So, again, appreciate those insights, really do. And I'm just excited about what you're trying to do in this space and the marine industry. And Alex, it was such a pleasure having you on today. And I look forward to speaking with you real soon. Thank you. Thank you very much for having me this morning. I will wish you a good day. Bye for now.