A Pacific Beach-based start-up is developing a prototype for the first-of-its-kind, all-electric, climate-friendly amphibious vehicle.

Being promoted as the first electric land-and-water solution by Poseidon Amphibworks, the company is presently pioneering the development of its first Trident LS-1 model. It is an electric amphibious hydrofoil carboat intended as the forerunner of a new family of vehicles.

“I realized I wanted to get into a niche that would serve not only as a recreational boat and taxi ferry but also be amphibious,” said Steve E. Tice, Poseidon AmphibWorks CEO. “So I hooked up with another person experienced in amphibious, Andy Langesfeld, and we discussed what it would take to put an amphibious/land vehicle on the market. Andy and I decided to enlist experts to basically tell us what we needed to have, and then we decided to design that vehicle and build a prototype. We formed Poseidon to do that in January 2022.”

The model Trident LS-1 is being developed with multiple application functionalities with the capability of being used for transportation, recreation, camping, light hauling, and even flood rescue. The craft’s amenities include a reconfigurable rear deck, flexible windows, soft-tops, a camping kit, and electric clutches allowing “flat-towing” that no other EV today offers.

Since its formation, Poseidon AmphibWorks has acquired 2,000-plus followers on social media and 25 investors, with many people interested in purchasing their prototype and awaiting demonstrations of it. A patent application has been filed by the company for its unique hydrofoil dual land/water power trains.

The company’s pitch for Trident LS-1 on its website, https://poseidonamphibworks.com, states that: “The $27 billion-plus recreational boat market is underserved. But our company’s unique electric amphibious highway-legal vehicles, due to hydrofoils, will be able to compete against fossil fuel-powered boats, providing the lowest operational costs, and multiple applications (land or water), while offering a smooth ride with the highest value.”

“We’re already up to the sixth version of our preliminary design, which we need before we start a marketing campaign to raise money,” said Tice about the status of the Trident LS-1. He pointed out that their prototype’s new hydrofoil technology will “allow electric boats to compete with gas boats.”

He added other non-hydrofoil electric boats are currently pricey, in the $300,000-plus range, a cost figure Poseidon believes it can seriously undercut once their Trident LS-1 is on the market.

To view a video clip of what the Trident LS-1 can do, visit https://youtu.be/_Cti4FoXti0.

History of amphibious vehicles – Defined as a vehicle for transporting passengers and cargo that can operate on land and in water, the earliest practical amphibious vehicles were conceived of in the early 19th century. They used wheels or tracks on land but had watertight hulls to navigate as boats in the water. The first known self-propelled amphibious vehicle, a steam-powered wheeled dredging barge named the Orukter Amphibolos, was conceived and built by U.S. inventor Oliver Evans in 1805. In the 1870s, logging companies in eastern Canada and the northern United States developed a steam-powered amphibious tug called an “Alligator,” which could cross between lakes and rivers.

Until the late 1920s, the efforts to unify a boat and an automobile mostly came down to simply putting wheels and axles on a boat hull, or getting a rolling chassis to float by blending a boat-like hull with the car’s frame. Recently, Gibbs Amphibians has developed a new type of amphibian, one capable of high speeds on both land and water. The vehicles use a patented hydraulic system to raise the wheels into the wheel wells, allowing the vehicles to plane on water. The first Gibbs fast amphibian is the Quadski, introduced in October 2012.