{"id":73624,"title":"Voltic: electric cargo ships","tagline":"We’re building electric cargo ships that are zero-emission and 3x more profitable than existing ships.","body":"**tl;dr** - We’re building electric cargo ships that are **zero-emission** and **3x more profitable** than existing ships.\n\n![](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/dkaLepTBHoVkqrWaRvHNwTdAZFsxsTB86Y7rsG1EaFYoe8_SUB2t_vp4E3_NprRzl6N4aFUIRIX-Ee9PDjYzsHP5W_0tJhcxThcywcYB3hIeFLW4dOe4qvlLMztbUKpVJKUT6d-Y9s_4yqvpvApJDFE)\n\nHey everyone! This is Prosser from [Voltic](https://volticshipping.com/). We’re creating electric cargo ships that are greener and cheaper than current options. \n\n### 🚢 **THE PROBLEM**\n\nShipping is a massive industry that contributes **2\\.2%** of the world’s CO2 emissions, 15% of the world’s NOx emissions and 13% of the world’s SOx emissions ([Source](https://clearseas.org/en/air-pollution/)). In other words, approximately 816,640,000,000 kg (.8 gigatons) of carbon dioxide is emitted by ships every year ([Source](https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions)). There is currently no generally accepted path to full sustainability for the industry. \n\nAt the same time, fuel is an enormous operating cost for ships. Ranging from **50%** at shipping’s most efficient to **75%** on fast or heavy routes when fuel prices are high, cargo prices are highly dependent on fuel prices ([Source](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1361920920306817)). This means our ships will not only be great for the environment but also sustainably cheaper than current alternatives. \n\n### **⚡ OUR SOLUTION**\n\nSupported by grants from the Department of Energy, we designed a solar and battery tech stack that can completely power a container ship at standard operating speeds. Unlike most hardware startups working on difficult engineering problems, we do not have a multi-year, multi-round path to profitability. We already have our first customer, and expect our first ship to be operational in the near future. This will be the first step towards building out a fleet of zero-emission vessels. Long term, we want to fully power the shipping industry via electricity, operating a fleet that can serve any route in the world. 🚢 🚢 🚢 \n\nEmail [contact@volticshipping.com](mailto:founders@volticshipping.com) for inquiries or contacts.\n\nAnd give our [LinkedIn page](https://www.linkedin.com/company/voltic-shipping/) a follow :)","slug":"J9U-voltic-electric-cargo-ships","created_at":"2023-07-31T23:07:33.095Z","updated_at":"2026-05-24T17:50:57.320Z","total_vote_count":96,"url":"https://www.ycombinator.com/launches/J9U-voltic-electric-cargo-ships","share_image_url":"//bookface-static.ycombinator.com/assets/ycdc/yc-og-image-c440a0ad1dacfb86eeeb343717479cc54d256614449b4ef719977a0a451f8bc8.png","company":{"id":26763,"name":"Voltic","slug":"voltic","url":"https://volticshipping.com/","logo":"https://bookface-images.s3.amazonaws.com/small_logos/10ff722eceb550e5d2356209069344867f3e3b39.png","batch":"Summer 2022","industry":"Industrials","tags":[],"search_path":"https://bookface.ycombinator.com/company/26763"}}