Article quotes `40 megawatt-hours of installed capacity.` - Surely this can get you pretty far from Tasmania to South America.

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chii 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

apparently, 40MWh of capacity is enough to travel 40 nautical miles. The distance between Tasmania and South America is around 6,500–7,500 nautical miles.

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amelius 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

For comparison, a wide body airliner needs ~0.15MWh to travel 1 nautical mile.

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eesmith 3 hours ago | parent [-]

A wide body airliner doesn't carry "up to 2,100 passengers and 225 vehicles".

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verandaguy 2 hours ago | parent [-]

It also does so in a medium where the main drag force is induced by air rather than water, which is probably a comparably significant factor

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potato3732842 2 hours ago | parent [-]

It also needs to beat up that air enough to make the resultant forces overcome gravity acting on the airliner whereas the ship just gets to float there.

Apples to orages.

	▲	eesmith 25 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Yup. Or to structure it a the earlier comment: for comparison, it takes me about 0.000065 MWh to cycle 1 nautical mile. That's a couple of apples.

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rcxdude 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I would be extremely surprised if the ship were designed to use 100% of its capacity in one way of its intended route.

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jacquesm 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The drag on a vessel is orders of magnitude larger than the drag on a car.