Peter Schorsch
Under the headline ‘Boating for everyone,’ Volvo Penta will use this year’s CES in Las Vegas to imagine a brave new world for exploring and experiencing life on the water built around accessibility for all.
Through an immersive and visionary exhibit, visitors can get an exclusive look at how the company imagines the boating experience of tomorrow. Volvo Penta aims to kick-start a dialogue with CES attendees and online boating audiences on how to evolve boating together.
Volvo Penta is joining the CES live for the first time in 2023 and premiering a future-focused universe, where it will present groundbreaking thinking around a potential new leisure boating experience. This future boating experience will be more open and accessible than ever, designed to heighten people’s emotional connection with the water and simultaneously advance sustainability.
Innovation is embedded in the DNA of Volvo Penta and the company has harnessed this with fast-moving technological advances to create a potential vision for the future that goes way beyond anything previously seen in the marine segment. As such, the company has elected to present it for the first time at CES.
The concept was produced by a team at Volvo Penta including strategists, business development leaders, digital and service experts, as well as technology designers and engineers, all collaborating with colleagues from across the wider Volvo Group.
“Being on the water develops incredible emotional connections in people. It’s difficult to convey the true experience and enjoyment you get from exploring, seeking out new adventures, or spending time there with friends and loved ones. With this new concept, we want to take this further and make it available to a wider population: Boating for everyone,” said Johan Inden, President of Volvo Penta’s global marine business.
“To re-imagine boating and elevate it, we must remove all conventional boundaries and completely reframe what it is. We want to challenge current thinking and be challenged ourselves. Our concept is designed to spark a dialogue, and we look forward to discussing it at CES. How can we make boating more accessible to anyone who wants to enjoy it? How can we build a boating universe with unlimited ways to explore and enjoy our waters, while at the same time protecting them? These are exciting questions and we’re at the start of our journey to lead the discussion together with our customers and partners.”
In addition to imagining tomorrow’s boating, the company will show how the transformation is already taking shape today.
Through an immersive virtual recreation of the near-silent cruising enjoyed aboard the hybrid-electric vessel, Kvitbjørn, CES visitors can experience what it’s like to be on this groundbreaking vessel that operates deep within the Arctic Circle. Hurtigruten Svalbard put it into commercial operation in 2022 to widespread acclaim and is offering tourists a deeper, more connected way to experience the fragile wilderness of glaciers, icebergs and Arctic desert.
