The future developments of Hybrid and electrical propulsion for small vessel, according to new possibilities offered by Industry 4.0.

The electrical propulsion was used at the beginning in the first years of XXth century for cars and ships, then the developments of traditional engines made this solution less used. Nowadays we are seeing a new renaissance with small vessels for public transportations, yachts, etc using hybrid propulsion. The paper aims at giving a study of new technologies and possibilities, not only like having a small passenger vessel completely propelled by batteries, but also examining the situation under the profile of accidents, of solutions to increase safety, and how the project should probably change completely the approach from the traditional design “spiral” starting from dimensions to a new one starting from the profile of mission and consequentially the logistic of power source available ashore to recharge the batteries. Combining all the above elements the paper aims at defining the directions for new development in manufacturing new small vessels with cleaner propulsion and also show how, as consequence of developments in batteries it is now possible to adopt electrical propulsion for several existing small vessels.