Electric Launch Company

Fifty-five launches, each 36 feet long and powered by battery-driven electric motors, carried over a million passengers.

[citation needed] By 1910, the advantages of the range and power of gasoline came to dominate the market and Elco converted to motor boats.

Idealia was owned by the company into 1916 and used for demonstrating the application of two stroke diesel engines in yachts.

[6][7][8] On 22 October 1913 under ELCO corporate manager Henry R. Sutphen Idealia performed a trial on the Hudson River witnessed by naval engineers and architects on a run of about sixty miles from the Columbia Yacht Club at 86th Street to Croton Point and back.

In 1949, Electric Boat decided to focus on government contracts for submarines, and Elco was closed until 1987.

[20] The company also still makes electric motors, mainly used to repower sailboats and heavy displacement powerboats as a replacement for diesel engines.