Countdown to Cannes Yachting Festival 2021: Frauscher 650 Alassio

Long-established Austrian engineers and boatbuilders Frauscher originally brought out the electric Alassio model back in 2010, and the family firm claims to have sold 250 of them.

The new version is billed as the ‘second generation’, with tweaks to the design, the user interface and the finish to create “a more valuable look and more intense feel”, in the words of managing director Michael Frauscher.

An attractive and nicely detailed little runabout, the Frauscher 650 Alassio would look perfectly at home on the pristine lakes of its homeland – and being an electric boat it would help to keep them that way.

It comes with a number of alternative installations that offer a wide variation in performance and capability.

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The simplest set-up consists if a 4.3kW motor with 960Ah of lead-acid batteries, for a maximum speed of 6.5 knots and a cruising range, at 5.4 knots, of 14 nautical miles. You’d need to be pretty confident in your navigation.

Lithium battery packs of 11kWh or 22kWh combined with more powerful motors of up to 15kW improve both speed and range quite markedly.

Top of the heap is the 60kW Torqeedo motor and a 40kWh BMW i3 battery, which gives a maximum speed of about 18 knots. Range at that lick, however, is less than ten nautical miles.

Reduce your speed to 5.4 knots (this all looks so much better in metric) and the Frauscher 650 Alassio can cruise for up to 42nm.

A pretty comprehensive standard spec includes ‘vegan leather’ upholstery, a swimming ladder, a bimini sunshade and real teak decking, while the options list brings in lots of alternative paint jobs, more choices of upholstery, storage boxes, a teak table, music system, drawer fridge and LED lighting inside and out. No paddle, though.

Frauscher 650 Alassio specification

LOA: 21ft 4in (6.5m)
Beam: 7ft 2in (2.2m)
Engine: 4.3kW-60kW
Top speed: 18 knots
Cruising speed: 5.4 knots
Range: 42nm
Starting price: TBC