Arc Boats’ new ‘high-octane package’ makes your boat worse for April Fools

It’s April Fools’ Day, also known as the worst day on the internet, where everyone thinks they’re clever with their fake announcements.

But Arc Boats has a pretty clever one today, which makes a real point about the benefits of electric propulsion.

Arc is an electric boat company, which started out making high-performance sport boats and is now working to hybridize other parts of the marine industry.

As such, it likes to tout the superiority of electric propulsion, and to point out the annoyances that boat owners have always had to go through in order to keep their fossil-powered boats running.

Electric propulsion is cleaner, more reliable, quieter, cheaper to fuel, easier to maintain, and if you’ve got a dock then you don’t even need to go anywhere to fill up.

So, how better to make all those points than to offer an optional package to make your boat worse, just to remind you of the bad old days of having to burn millions-year-old dino juice to get around.

Thus comes Arc’s “High-Octane Package,” which is actually available as a free real optional add-on for anyone who reserves an Arc Sport today.

The package comes with three main “upgrades” (downgrades?) related to how stinky, unreliable and noisy fossil-powered engines are.

• An air freshener in the shape of a gas can, with “gas-scented aroma”
• An “unreliable engine mode” which randomly refuses to start your boat
• A “surprise merch item” that we don’t know the identity of yet (but it’s probably just a logo hat or sweatshirt, so, maybe this doesn’t fit the theme of making things worse)

Arc also arranged a playlist of engine noises to remind you of what you’re (not at all) missing. It says:

Since we can’t bottle up the engine noise, we made you a playlist to complete the experience. Think: full throttle on open water but this time you can actually turn it down if you want to hold a conversation.

The best part is that this is all real… well, except for the unreliable engine mode. Arc told us that it isn’t actually going to update boats to start unreliably.

But one point here is that it could, due to the ability of Arc’s software to be updated over the air. Unlike most boats, Arc’s has access to over-the-air updates. When you’ve got a big battery onboard, you can power a lot more electronics, which enables more capabilities like this. And we’ve seen many EV manufacturers do fun holiday/seasonal updates before, with fun changes alongside functional ones.

The High-Octane package is only available on the Arc Sport, Arc’s all-electric, high-performance wakeboat. Arc previously made a limited-edition Arc One speedboat and has a future less-expensive Arc Coast center console boat, but since one is sold out and the other isn’t for sale yet, you can’t get the High-Octane Package on them.

To check out the boat, including the new High-Octane Package which is only available today, you can head on over to Arc’s reserve page. Just… turn down your speakers before you select the high-octane package checkbox (trust me on this one).

Or, if you can’t swing a $500 reservation on a $268,000 wakeboat (times are tough, after all), Arc has put up a page to offer a free gas-scented air freshener to anyone, while supplies last, if you want that sort of thing for some weird reason. Find that here (yes, I did get one for myself. No, I have no idea why)

Electrek’s Take

April Fools is generally a pretty bad day to work as a journalist online, because every company thinks they’re soooo clever with their April Fools jokes (see: Voltswagen, a “joke” that started on March 29 and ended on March 30, neither of which are April Fools Day).

Arc’s effort here, though, I think is actually great.

Sure, it’s a marketing stunt and a cheap way to get some coverage and interest and generate leads.

But it also makes a great point, and while Arc could have just made this into an announcement or a social post, it went to the (small) effort of grabbing a bunch of air fresheners and making a page promising to send them out to people.

It’s fun, it makes a real point, and it’s actually real (for the most part, minus that engine mode). Well done on this stunt, Arc.

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