The eTakuma is an eFoil from Takuma, a hydrofoil company with operations in France and Asia. Takuma announced its first electric foilboard in 2018 and began shipping some units in 2019.

Takuma History

Takuma Founder Cyril Coste had moved from France to New Caledonia a few years earlier to enjoy the ideal water sports conditions.

Cyril was a professional kitesurfer, then worked in the development team of Naish and founded his first company Lokahiboards in 2007 to develop SUP surfboards. A second company he founded was called Takuma-Boat. Here the idea was to market a foil board with a fixed sail.

Cyril developed the first eFoilboards with his team in Japan. However, the sales and marketing team still works from France. As of 2018, Cyril has spent most of his time in Japan pushing the development of the eTakuma. The story here is a bit similar to that of Lift Foils from Puerto Rico (USA), who also first developed foilboards for surfing and kitesurfing before announcing the eFoil in 2017, which was then launched in 2018.

eTakuma

In the first announcements around the eTakuma, it was said that Takuma’s eFoil should fly at speeds as low as around 8 km/h. The maximum speed should be around 30 km/h. 8 km/h is quite low for an electric hydrofoil and in fact the first eTakuma was very large and aimed at beginners and very heavy riders.

Furthermore, at the first announcement, a modular system was presented, which should make it possible to use the eTakuma also for surfing and kiting without a motor. For this purpose, the battery was to be replaced by a lightweight plastic block to reduce the weight and the mast was to be replaced by a mast without a motor, thus eliminating the resistance of the propeller. However, this design has not yet been brought to market.

remote from BBTalkin

The remote control was developed in cooperation with the company BBTalkin, BBTalkin is known for Bluetooth voice radios used by kite and surf instructors. We ourselves use it for our eSurfboard trainings. Unlike remotes from other eSurfboard manufacturers, the remote itself was not waterproof, but was placed in a waterproof case before use. Just like the BB Talking radios. The handling was a bit awkward and in some cases not tight either, as users reported. Therefore, Takuma has moved away from this concept for the second generation in 2021. The new remote is supposed to be waterproof by itself.

Together with BBTalkin, a cooling system has also been patented to cool the ESC controller without water hoses in the air and on the water surface. The name around the patent is “Wattair Cool.” Fliteboard has a similar system.

eTakuma launch

We interviewed founder Cyril in 2018 and met the Takuma team at boot 2020. In 2020, Takuma’s eFoil was expected to hit the market in larger quantities. There was talk of 4000 boards per year. I think it is very unlikely that this number was even close to being reached.

Unlike the market leaders Lift Foils and Fliteboard, the Takuma team wanted to keep the price in the lower price segment. At around 6,000 EUR, they were only half as expensive as the competitors from the USA and Australia. But with 3 kW of power, they were also far below the 5 kW of the competitors, and the top speed was given as 34 km/h.

Here is our interview from the boot 2020 for the E-SURFER Youtube channel:

Unfortunately, the low price point had probably also affected the quality of the product and you can read a few entries from disappointed customers in the Facebook groups and forums. Later in 2020, a smaller e-foilboard was also launched. The first model was quite large and bulky as mentioned above. Takuma has announced the second generation for 2021. More on that below.

Takuma eFoil at Decathlon

To the surprise of many, Takuma announced in late 2020 that it would sell the first generation eTakuma in 2021 through Decathlon’s Sportmarkt stores. On the one hand, it is questionable whether a product that requires a lot of consultation for 6,000 EUR is in good hands here. On the other hand, the first generation had some technical difficulties, as mentioned above. Since Takuma itself is focusing on the second generation of its electric hydrofoil, it will be interesting to see how the feedback from Decathlon customers will turn out in terms of quality and support. Decathlon is scheduled to start selling electric hydrofoils in early summer 2021. For the time being, however, probably only in France.

eTakuma V2

Also in early summer 2021, the second generation of the eTakuma should be available. In addition to the new remote control (again in collaboration with BBTalkin), the original modular system was announced again, so the eFoilboard can be used for kiting or surfing without a motor. To us, the system still seems a bit awkward, as the board should actually be too big and too heavy for such an application. Other manufacturers like Waviator have already failed with such a concept.

The 2021 boards will be offered in white, light blue, red and black. The runtime is said to be 70 to 90 minutes and there will again be two sizes. The larger board with short mast and large wing called Cruiser is positioned for beginners. The smaller board with longer mast smaller wings for advanced riders and is called Carver. But even the small board is still a lot bigger than the sportier models from Lift Foils and Fliteboard. We are already curious about the feedback of the users in the Facebook groups and forums. We will also test it ourselves and report about it.

More about the eTakuma electric foilboard in our forum.