On a recent afternoon, Erick Pinzon pointed out some of the vessels parked in the lot of Willoughby Marina.
“This is a boat from Finland that's got solar panels on top,” he said. “We’ve got an X Shore one, which is a 21-foot cuddy cabin that’s from Sweden. All of these electric jet skis here are from Taiga, from Montreal.”
Pinzon and his business partner, Erin Gatling, launched a company in Norfolk a few years ago called Electrified Marina, which has shipped dozens of electric vessels from San Diego to Singapore.
Pinzon claims it’s the only boat dealer in the U.S. that sells exclusively electric boats. “We are now the biggest catalyst in the electric boat industry in the country.”
And they’re just getting started, he said.
Pinzon and Gatling didn’t grow up boating, or originally intend to go into the business. They each spent nearly a decade working in Silicon Valley, Pinzon at Tesla and Gatling at SpaceX.
They met after moving to Hampton Roads, and decided to buy a small marina along Knitting Mill Creek in Norfolk. Originally the goal was to rent out houseboats on Airbnb, but they dropped the idea after learning of associated city regulations.
The next idea was to rent boats, and they reached out to an electric boat manufacturer given Pinzon’s background in EVs. The company suggested they sell them instead.
“And we said, ‘Well, why is nobody doing this yet?’” Pinzon said. “If someone’s going to do it, it kind of has to be us.”
Electrified Marina started selling boats in 2023. It operates out of the site at Knitting Mill Creek and Willoughby Marina, which the company also purchased.
The merchandise includes pontoons, cruisers and jet skis, about half of which come from Europe. The company's always open to new brands.
These boats have no gas fuel tank or engine, instead powered entirely by electricity. On average there are about 1,000 pounds of lithium-ion or lithium iron phosphate batteries on board.
Pinzon acknowledges electric boats aren’t for everyone.
For one, they come with a price premium, ranging on average from about $80,000 to $120,000.
The boats also might not make sense for heavy-use or long-distance users, such as crabbers or work boats, but could be ideal for a pleasure boater.
“For the average person in Broad Bay that's going to sit at the sandbar all day long, it's the perfect use case,” Pinzon said. “You go to a restaurant that's 5 miles away, you go to this sandbar and then a few miles home, and their entire day is 20 miles. Our average boat can do that without even thinking about it.”
That’s the case for Virginia Beach resident Daniel Provenzano, who was connected to Electrified Marina while looking for somewhere to buy an electric motor.
Provenzano got a good deal on a gas pontoon on Facebook Marketplace, but his neighborhood on Lake James only allows electric motors, in order to stem pollution and protect bulkheads from waves created by high wake.
The Norfolk marina installed an electric motor on his boat to replace a gas one, Provenzano said.
He said he’s been skeptical of EVs, but his mind was quickly changed about electric boats.
“They’re quiet, they're efficient, and definitely for the purchaser, they're economically better because you're not buying the gas and having to get all that maintenance,” Provenzano said.
“But the thing I love about it the most, honestly, is it's just so quiet and peaceful.”
His boat’s battery charge hasn’t dipped below 80% since he started using it this summer.
Pinzon said Electrified Marina is trying to upend the old adage that the best days of a boat owner’s life are when they buy it and when they sell it, thousands of maintenance dollars later.
About 60% of its customers are first-time boat owners.
Eventually, the company hopes to boost sustainability measures at Willoughby Marina, such as covering the parking lot or boat slips with solar panels and capturing rainwater to reuse to wash boats, Pinzon said.
He hopes the electric boat industry keeps expanding – but plans to remain a leader in the space.
