A new electric hydrofoil from China will be shown at CES in Las Vegas next week.
I will be at the show to meet the CEO Dennis Zhu and to have a closer look at his e-foil surfboard.
They want to offer their eFoil from 4,999 USD.
More info at: Waydoo
Fantastic. Looking forward to hearing your opinions. Hopefully they are the real deal.
Looks great. as usual battery safety and servicing in Europe is only concern when it comes to chinese products! I wonder if Dennis Zhu cares to come here to the forum and explain?
Howzit Mike
You are so right. Buying from a Chinese company is as good as throwing your money away. When the board breaks its cheaper to buy another one rather than ship it back to China and waste 6 months waiting. I asked them to come here with a demo board so we could test, review and make a video but they said we should go to China. With this attitude I don’t see them going very far in Europe. Any manufacturer that is serious, committed and confident in their product would happily and proudly come and present it in Europe. If they cant even do this then I wouldn’t even dream of dealing with them. They are one of many that want sales but do nothing to get them.
Coming to the forum to explain is to easy. If you cant bring your product to us and stand behind it then dont waste our time coming to the forum. The internet is full of new boards and false promises. Manufacturers should come and present their boards and be proud to do so otherwise they are just one of the many empty promises that get emailed to us every day.
Everything looks great online but in reality especially from China its mostly shit and I’m still waiting for a Chinese manufacturer to prove me wrong. No offence to the Chinese but speaking from many years and many wasted hundreds of thousand of euros worth of experience. Trust me I learnt the hard way so that you guys don’t have to.
Buy a quality product from a manufacturer that puts their money where their mouth is and comes to Europe to back it up. If they want our money and sales they should come here and prove themselves otherwise they are just another dime a dozen cheap Chinese copy.
Wayne
I agree we would need a test board and a full review. They said they want to have distributors in the US and Europe.
The company does produce professional drones for agriculture and fixed wings aircrafts. See a few pictures here:
Come on, we can’t assume they’re a crap company because they’re in China, and we can’t assume the product is crap because its a lot cheaper than the competitors.
I think everyone can agree that lots of quality goods are made in China, and that e-foiling will need to see quality products well under 5K for this to be a sport with the sort of followership that kiteboarding has.
That said, of course they need to provide demos and go to trade shows and set up dealerships. Nobody is going to buy this without kicking the tires based on nothing more than a web page. But there is every reason to expect that to happen, since, as Andreas says, this is a real company diversifying into a new market, and not a true startup.
Pete, the product does not matter as much as post sale service… it can be all great and cheap on fotos but once it breaks what happens next? Try shipping something back to China and you will be surprised how next to impossible it is, not even saying how expensive it is. I tried to ship a broken drone and it was cheaper to throw it away.
For 5K, with a reasonably local dealership (say, somewhere between the Bay Area and Seattle) I’d buy this board for sure. I’m not worried that it’s made in China, lots of quality things are made in China. This is no knock on people selling more expensive boards, the market has to start somewhere. But I think there are plenty of people with roughly my take on this - if its going to go anywhere then it will get to 5K or less soon enough, and that might very well require Asian manufacturing.
When I met them at CES they mentioned the price of 4,999 USD was published by mistake in their press release.
They now mentioned a price of 7,999 USD plus tax and shipping.
I wonder how big the market is at 8K. Still a lot cheaper than 12 I suppose. How did the board look? Did you get a test drive?
I agree at 8k they are competing with the ones of E-TAKUMA.
No test ride as these were only no working prototypes at CES (and I am not sure where to ride in Las Vegas ;-))
They promised however to send me a sample in March after mass production. To be seen if this will happen …
Lake Mead is right there, year round if you’ve got a wetsuit (pretty sure anyways). E-Takuma looks impressive, especially since they sell you two masts with a modular system. That works on so many levels.
13kg batteries? if it only lasts an hour then they run on high power consumption 
Howzit Pete
I’m speaking from experience. if we look at the jetboards that have come from China its fair to say that not one has proved to be worth anything. Ive bought over 10 different new boards/brands and sometimes a few of each so in total Ive owned at least 30 Chinese boards. Counting my customers boards Ive worked on it runs into the 100s of Chinese boards that have gone through my hands and I promise you they are all rubbish. In the jetboard industry its safe to say that the Chinese jetboards should be avoided. I look forward to the day that this changes and I welcome any quality Chinese board but that day hasn’t come yet and I’m giving advice based on a lot of experience with Chinese jetboards.
The Chinese actually started manufacturing boards long before the Europeans did so they have had time to get it right but they are not trying to make a quality product but instead focus on cheap products and with jetboards cheap is not cheap in the long run.
Some of the earliest mass produced jetboards were the Surfjet and the Powerski jetboards and both of these companies went out of business when the Chinese made cheap copies of the boards, mass produced them, flooded the market and ruined the name and reputation of jetboards in general. I wont be surprised if this happens again and all legitimate manufacturers share the same concern.
If you knew how many customers contact me with a big long and soppy story begging for help because the cheap Chinese jetboards they bought don’t work you might understand why I speak out so openly and warn people about Chinese boards. This is not my personal opinion but this is the history of Chinese jetboards.
Im not trying to be a kill joy and as I mentioned already I was the first to get excited every time I found another Chinese jetboard, the first to think that this could be the next best thing, the first to buy it and unfortunately the first to admit that I was wrong and had wasted my money. I think that after doing it for over 10 years its fair to say I know what I’m talking about.
However I do look forward to the day that something great does come out of China but it hasn’t happened in the last 10 years so I will always warn everyone to use caution and be careful with Chinese boards. Maybe times are changing and something good is coming but history proves that the chances are slim.
Wayne
What does the history of internal-combustion-engine powered boards have to do with e Foils? Nothing in my opinion, completely different technology. It’s just a simple fact of basic physics/engineering that electric motors are simpler and less prone to breakage that internal combustion engines. You’re basically talking about a type of jetski when you discuss ICE powered boards.
It does not matter, efoil, combustion or electric, they all break the same way. I guess it just takes personal experience to get burned to believe.
I don’t believe that at all. Everytime we see ICE replaced with electric you see much higher rates of reliability. Electric engines are famous for their durability ask any engineer.
Peter… it’s a discussion with no winner…
I dont need to ask anyone, I had myself and tested almost all boards. Wayne too. There is still a long way to go before they can be called reliable.
Fun, exciting, new sport… but not reliable at all 
So wait - now you’re saying all the powered foils are unreliable? Lift’s eFoil is unreliable? Any evidence to back that up? They’ve shipped quite a few, and with the price they’re charging, I doubt unhappy customers would be suffering in silence. I’d reckon that product is bombproof.
