DHL Water Strider Concept Won DHL Blue Sky Transport Design Award

DHL Water Strider is an autonomous solar powered delivery boat that takes an advantage of the world’s waterways infrastructure to transport the growing amount of goods.

In 2014, just 16 of the world’s largest freight ships account for the same amount of emissions as all the cars in the world. Oliver Lehtonen and Philippe Hohlfeld, postgraduate students in the Royal College of Art and the Imperial College London, looked further into the transportation of goods and found out that the logistic chains are almost completely based on vehicles running on combustion engines, all the way to the congested last mile. In addition, people’s changing consumption habits, centered around increasing use of e-commerce, will set vast pressure for the current logistic system. This increased pressure on the system only means increased amount of vehicles on the roads and the oceans.

DHL Water Strider will lead the way for the next generation sustainable delivery services with express delivery on waters. Drone technology and the autonomous vehicles have advanced to the point where they are ready to hit the roads. However, with the majority of world’s cities accessed through waterways (85% of the European capitals are located on rivers), DHL’s autonomous electric delivery boats take advantage of this new technology on re-found waterways infrastructure. Innovative service offers a fast, quiet and clean delivery in and out of towns located along the rivers and coastal areas.

Designers : Oliver Lehtonen and Philippe Hohlfeld

DHL Water Strider by Oliver Lehtonen and Philippe Hohlfeld

DHL Water Strider by Oliver Lehtonen and Philippe Hohlfeld

Water Strider’s main features include retractable hydrofoils for different riding modes, 12 square meters of solar panels to provide 8 kWh of energy to power the boat and a five cubic meter cargo bay to store the same amount of cargo as normal sized delivery van.

DHL Water Strider by Oliver Lehtonen and Philippe Hohlfeld

DHL Water Strider by Oliver Lehtonen and Philippe Hohlfeld

DHL Water Strider by Oliver Lehtonen and Philippe Hohlfeld

DHL Water Strider by Oliver Lehtonen and Philippe Hohlfeld

DHL Water Strider by Oliver Lehtonen and Philippe Hohlfeld



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