Featured Project No. 1
BMW / TYDE
The BMW / TYDE project is an innovative 14 meter fully electric boat, based on the BMW i3 battery technology.
For a conventional fast boat, the usual answer has been simple: add power, burn more fuel, make more noise, and push more water aside. In electric boating, this old method becomes impossible very quickly.
This is where foiling becomes essential. By lifting the hull above the surface, the boat reduces wetted area and drag. Less drag means less energy wasted, better efficiency, higher speed potential, and a much quieter experience. The boat does not need to push its way through the sea.
For J&J Design, the BMW / TYDE project connected several long-standing areas of work: green boating, advanced composites in the carbon/epoxy technology, efficient naval architecture, tooling, engineering, and prototype development. It was not simply an exercise in electric propulsion. It was a full development challenge, where hull, foils, structure, control systems, batteries, propulsion, weight, and comfort all had to work as one system. As usual, the sea would be the final arbitrator. The test boat seen on the left was engineered, tooled and built in five months and then tested for three months to get the flifght controller software to perfection. The foils were designed with Guillaume Verdier and Pixel Sur Mer wrote the software. The 11T boat achieved 32,5 knots with 2 × 100 kW power: a performance unbeaten so far.
Advanced Foiling Mechanics for Optimal Efficiency
At the centre of the project is a computer-controlled foiling system. Foils react constantly to speed, load, sea state, pitch, roll, and changing conditions.
The final boat with the superstructure designed by BMW Designworks was presented in Cannes during the 2023 Film Festival.
Sustainable Engineering and High-Tech Materials
The project depends on lightweight, high-strength carbon/epoxy composite structures. The foils, hull, and supporting systems must be stiff, accurate, and strong, while keeping weight under strict control.
BMW, TYDE, and J&J/RnD brought together different industrial strengths: mobility technology, electric boating vision, and practical yacht development experience. The result points toward a cleaner and more intelligent kind of performance: less noise, less wake, less waste, and more control.
J&J Design together with RnD created and executed the engineering, integrating a range of technologies, materials, electronics and software into a new product which exceeded all expectations, delivered in record time, reducing development costs while performing flawlessly.