Tarform unveils 50 mph electric jet ski designed like a manta ray

The boutique electric motorcycle maker Tarform has just unveiled a very different type of electric vehicle than we’re used to seeing from the company. This time it has shunned two wheels in favor of a sleek hull, creating the Tarform Raye personal watercraft.

Named after the manta ray, a seagoing creature with its own distinctive flowing shape, the Tarform Raye is intended to be just as fast as it looks.

The design is still in the rendering phase, and we all know that talk is cheap this early on, but the NYC-based company says the Raye should hit a top speed of 50 mph (43 knots or 80 km/h). That’s if it ever gets built.

But the odds may be better than you’d think, as Tarform has a history of bringing slick-looking designs to market starting with its first electric motorcycle, the Tarform Luna. That bike’s design debuted back in 2018 before eventually making deliveries last year.

The Tarform Luna electric motorcycle is emblematic of the company’s design approach, which is on full display in the Tarform Raye. Unlike many of the electric motorcycles we see today that take on a more conventional design intended to please the widest audience, Tarform focused on a more bespoke, hand-made direction from the beginning. That far-out design from the company’s early motorcycle days carries through to the impressive renderings of the Tarform Raye electric jet ski.

As you can imagine, tech specs are scarce. And even if they weren’t, early specs on concept vehicles don’t always translate into final production numbers.

But we do know that Tarform is targeting two models of the Raye personal electric watercraft, both featuring waterjet propulsion powered by an electric motor. A lower-power version will have a 70 hp (52 kW) motor, while a higher-performance version will boast 120 hp (89 kW) of power.

Two battery options will also be available with a claimed one- or two-hour run time.

The electric watercraft is said to have similarities to the company’s electric motorcycle, as it will apparently “share the same technology from the Tarform Luna with over-the-air updates, machine learning, and sensor technology for a seamless and connected experience.”

It sounds like a thrilling ride, but it won’t be a cheap thrill. The company estimates a sale price of US $68,000.

Personal electric watercraft are a small but growing niche in the larger electric watercraft industry.

Many of the sparse options are still in prototype form, though Electrek‘s Fred Lambert has tested the functional Tarform electric jet ski and reported on its exciting performance.

Electrek’s Take

This isn’t a sentence I expected to write when I woke up today, but that’s the sexiest jet ski I’ve ever seen.

That being said, there’s a difference between a beautifully crafted design and something people will actually buy. Art is fun to look at, but not everyone wants to ride an art piece.

So if the company can get this thing built, then I’ll be interested to see if it can succeed at the next challenge of actually selling it.

Consider that the Taiga Orca electric jet ski is significantly more affordable at just under $20K (which is still not an impulse buy). But then again, the Taiga doesn’t look nearly as slick.

What do you think of the Tarform Raye? Could you see yourself skimming across the water on what looks like someone got carried away with wet hands on the Cybertruck’s wax model? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below!