Watching The World’s First Flight of the NAVEE WaveFly 5X in Suzhou, China

This one is not about home energy upgrades, so there is nothing here that touches your house or your utility bills. It is a look at a new personal watercraft from a Chinese company called NAVEE, which already makes electric scooters, e-bikes, and other small electric vehicles.

The new product, called the WaveFly 5X, just had its first public flight in Suzhou, China. It looks like a cross between a personal watercraft and a small plane, with four electric propellers and two wings. Instead of taking off into the air, it uses the motors and wings to skim along just 12 to 32 inches above the water, similar to a hovercraft. It can reach about 85 km an hour, travel roughly 80 km on a charge, and seats two people with a combined weight limit of 140 kg.

It is still an early prototype, and it is not yet clear how many motors the final production version will have, or whether regulators will treat it as a boat, a small aircraft, or something new that needs its own licensing rules. NAVEE's website lists a price around $279,000, with a $10,000 deposit to reserve one, so for now this is aimed at luxury buyers rather than typical households. There is no word yet on when, or whether, it will become more affordable or widely available.