Buckle up, boys and girls! Today I’m going to treat you to something with an extra dose of both awesome and weird for this week’s entry in the Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week! I hope you came hungry. (And also ready to hurl that lunch you’re hungry for.) Because today we’re diving headfirst into a donut-shaped BBQ party boat fresh off of China’s oddest little corner of the web!
This ain’t no electric speed boat, and it’s barely a pleasure cruiser.
It looks to have the hydrodynamics of a bowling ball, and likely handles just as well. But outfitted with a slightly more powerful than 1,100W electric motor and with just the right tail wind, it conceivably could get you puttering in the right direction on your local calm lake or inlet.
But you didn’t sign up for a BBQ boat because you wanted high performance. No, of course not! You came for the experience, and this boat offers enough good times to last you a lifetime.
The epicness of this donut-shaped BBQ boat simply knows no bounds. I got in touch with the manufacturer’s sales rep Frank Zuo who assured me that it is just as legit as it looks, which I assume was meant in a positive way.
He shared with me some more detail about the boat and its many features. One of the coolest, no doubt, is that the round plastic table can come with a built-in BBQ pit in the middle for preparing dinner right there on the boat.
The fiberglass hull is rimmed with a stainless steel grab handle for safety. There is also stainless steel diamond plate on the steps to enter the boat, which seems like another good nod to safety.
The last thing you want while hopping on a bobbing and spinning platform that is inherently unstable is to faceplant into a lit BBQ pit. Keeping your footing and having some nice grab rails should come in handy.
Back on the tech spec side of things, the BBQ party boat gets outfitted with a 1,152W electric motor (boy, that sure is specific!) and requires either a duo or a quartet of 12V 60Ah batteries in parallel to give it enough juice to operate for more than a quick snack run.
Speeds of between 6-12 km/h (3.7-7.4 mph) are said to be possible, though I’m going to want to confirm that myself. Or rather, maybe I’ll just take their word for it. This isn’t my idea of a relaxing Sunday afternoon, even if its admittedly pretty darn cool looking.
But if you and your friends could spend the day bobbing around while roasting weiners and burgers, then this might be right up your alley. And there are even two different sizes of donuts, depending how many buddies you can rope into this endeavor.
The smaller version measures 2.5 meters (8 feet) across, while the larger version comes in at a whopping 3.2 meters (10.5 feet) in diameter. With that much real estate, you might as well start charging entry and turn it into an attraction on your local electric lake.
You’d make back the purchase price pretty quickly, considering you can scoop one up for just US $2,690. Though if you get 100 units, the price drops to just $999. Now that’s a deal, baby!
If you do want to get one, let Frank know I sent you. It won’t help you with a discount or anything, but it’d still be funny to see him trying to figure out how I have so many friends.
While I noted that this isn’t exactly my tub of tea, I am still seriously looking at another of this vendor’s electric boats that I actually featured last year.
A nice and simple 5-seater electric boat that doesn’t have all the fancy bells and whistles (like, you know, a BBQ pit) is a little bit more my style. But even I can’t deny how cool this donut-shaped electric boat is.
Just don’t go taking it off any waterfalls. This is definitely a “stick to the rivers and the lakes that you’re used to” kind of moment.
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