Torqeedo  Reviews 56

A word of Advice/warning to anyone in the UK who is thinking about buying the new Ultralight for their Kayak . If you can go to your local supplier and get them to check that the throttle has the latest update so it can talk to your phone/pad and do automatic updates if it can not get them to update there and then . The reason I say this , is I bought an ultralight along with an 1425 xp battery near on two months ago it came from Golden Arrow southampton who I believe are the main importers . When I got it I saw that the updates where not up to date , so I tried to do it following the video/instructions you see above the throttle would not update . The throttle was sent back and still as not I believe been updated that was near on six weeks ago . I do not know if Torqeedo have a glich or have not come clean , because I have e mailed their HQ and when I ring Torqeedo at Golden Arrow Southampton it seems to be all smoke and mirrors . So please take this advice onboard before you part with your hard earned cash .......Torqeedo for the price that you charge you should look after your customers .

I changed my sailboat gasoline outboard motor to a Torqeedo Travel L motor about 1,5 years ago. After approximately 1 year, there was already quite some wear on the motor parts (compared to after more than a decade with the gasoline motor). And recently, after removing the motor, bringing it home for a few weeks, and re-installing it, the screen did not work anymore. Even though the motor was under guarantee, Torqeedo refused to cover this. They claim I damaged it, even though nothing special happened. Which basically means that Torqeedo considers this as normal, and therefore not covered by guarantee. It is true that my sail boat is a sport boat and I participate in regattas in various weather conditions. So it looks like this type of motor is only recommended in case it is only used in quiet conditions. In case you are a regatta sailor, you better stick a bit longer to your gasoline motor, or look for another brand.

I’m sick to death of this Torqueedo. Although purchased in 2017 from Golden Arrow Portsmouth, in 2018 I had to return the battery which wouldn’t hold a charge. After a year they merely gave me a replacement. Since then I’ve hardly used it. And when I have it would get you there but not get you home. There have been endless error 30 messages and now I’m getting error 30 and error 45 simultaneously. Biggest waste of £1,365 ever. DO NOT BUY ONE!

Regret my purchase and it hasn't even been used yet. I bought my Torqeedo Travel in Aug of 2024 before the delivery of my boat in Oct. Not needing it over the winter, I just assembled it (April 2025) and plugged in the brand new battery. It won't charge. Contacted support and they won't help under warranty. Apparently it has a shelf life of a gallon of milk, becuase I was told on page 55 of the manual you have to maintain 50% charge and check every 3 months. Seriously? That should be something that is made very clear when you buy it. I'm out $1300 for this POS. Stay away!

We purchased a 1103S torqeedo engine & battery on 14.2.2020. 95% of the time kept in bag on the boat, we went out to sea for 10 mins, came in went up river.
The engine had been on our dinghy, the bracket had snapped totally and we had lost our engine & battery in the sea. We sent pictures to Torqeedo Germany & they offered a 20% discount on a new one, only if bought through them. By this time we had bought a new engine, as needed to use the dinghy. Very surprised that the bracket had snapped off completely - there must have been a fault in the metal manufacture.
Anyone else with this problem.. really disappointed with the offer from them under the circumstances.

Installed a Torqueedo

Very very unreliable. Fails repeatably in a tidal harbour. My 40 year old two stroke is more reliable. The plugs and their cables are not suitable for a marine environment

I have a Travel 1003L. Despite not that much use over 4 years the tiller and battery have failed due to water ingress (though they’re supposed to be waterproof) and were replaced by Torqeedo and today the shaft started making a knocking sound with the propellor turning without any real power just when I needed it to work properly to get me back to shore safely. You just can’t rely on it working when you need it. Waste of money.

This is what has happened to my torqeedo 1003 just a week ago. A propeller hit the sand. But the unit was working and, I made to my marina OK. Next morning I found that shear pin that suppose to protect the motor, actually destroyed it. It broke on one side but was still connected to a propeller. The piece that broke, went down between cover and moving part and made a hole in a plastic cover by: The surface of the prop and the cover looks like a water board. And, the motor was full of seawater. Error E45. I posted photos and description of this on a new torqeedo webpage but got nothing except some links, that are not helpful. My point is - the part that suppose to protect the motor actually destroyed it. The unit is 1003, out of warranty and discontinued. I have 2 batteries that are still good but useless as now. $2200 just for batteries... So Torqeedo, would you comment and do something about it? Crickets as usual? How it is my fault? I think it is bad design, having electronics underwater and no protection against cases like mine. Bad product, bad support, bad company.

Very disappointed with the product. After very light use (two or three times each season) followed by meticulous washing and dry storage the unit has failed due to water ingress and corrosion. The unit has probably less that 40 hours use in total (- not sure if there is a usage time option on the display) and now the unite that I paid over £1300 for is scrap. At over £30 per hour - many of which were not motoring this is neither good engineering nor value for money. There appears to be no cost effective mechanisms for repairing these units. If there is, I would sincerely like to know how. The dealerships all say - buy a new unit. - Disposable outboards??

PLEASE READ before buying from Torqeedo!!
There are some important good and bad points you need to know. I purchased a Cruise 6 (equivalent to a 9.9HP motor) to replace a Yamaha 9.9HP and the motor is actually really good - quiet, efficient, reliable and absolutely replaces a petrol outboard.

HOWEVER - the battery is a disaster. I purchased a 48-500 battery (about $5200 USD) and there are some MAJOR design flaws. (1) the battery gradually discharges - so even after a few weeks you have lost a lot of charge (2) it is supposed to go into sleep mode when it reaches 20% charge - but even if it does this, it still uses power and then runs flat and DIES. (3) Because of the type of battery it does NOT like to be kept fully charged - so you can't leave it on charge. (4) Even more daft - if you decide to leave it on charge - the charger will charge to 100% and then switch off and not start to re-charge until turned on and off again (this is what I was told by service).
So....my battery died during the floods in Australia when I wasn't able to get to the boat for 3 months and because it was still under warranty (I'd only had it for 8 months!) I thought it would be a warranty claim.....but no, Torqeedo declined and said it was my fault as it had been left on (it hadn't - the control switch was off). Imagine a Laptop or phone that destroyed its battery if fully discharged! - and this is an $8000AUD premium battery!.
Also - as one of the other reviewers has said - the customer service is probably the worst I have ever experienced. It came as a real surprise to me, because in my experience German businesses are very efficient and usually provide quality products and good service.

So in summary - if you want a motor - it's a good unit (but there are many good units now) but you do need to be aware that the customer service is absolutely appalling and DON'T buy Torqeedo batteries. I purchased a Chinese LiFePO4 battery that is TWICE the capacity (10kwh) and a THIRD of the price and can be left fully charged. It has been excellent. -very happy with it.

Ultimately to spend so much money on what is supposed to be a premium product and then have major design flaws that allow an expensive battery to go flat and die and then that sort of customer service.....I would go elsewhere!

I purchased a torqeedo outboard for my dinghy in Mallorca about 6 years ago. After two years the motor stopped working. There are no repairing facilities in Mallorca and it took Torqeedo several months to repair it. we were without a motor for the whole season.
A year or so later the throttle packed up. Again it took Torqeedo several months to send a new throttle and we were without a motor for most of the season

In April this year we were advised that there maybe a problem with the battery and it required replacement. They gave the opportunity to buy a new motor at a small discount. I decided to do this as i had so much aggravation with the existing one. I told them to deliver it when i arrived in early June for the season. It arrived the last week of August when we were returning to the UK. Totally useless and they collected the motor as i would not accept it.

They have refused to give me a new one next season or now replace their faulty battery.

I will either purchase a competitor's electric or probably go back to petrol which is half the price and twice as reliable. If they fail it is easy to get fixed.

I have not been able to have any conversation with Torqeedo and they are totally disinterested.

DO NOT BUY TORQEEDO

UPDATE:
After my review here Torqeedo actually did get in touch by email. Said they would sort it out.
That is now over a month ago and have not heard from them since. They really dont care about customers after they get their money.

I have a 1003c that has failed completely. I sent it for service as it was still under warranty. The local repair center refused to repair it as they said it had been hit so hard that the shaft bent and let in water.
I had the motor retuned and took it to a machineshop. They measured the runout on the shaft and it was 0.04mm. Basically straight.I sent and email to Torqeedo, Germany and just got a reply saying " it is now outside of warranty" This has been going on since April 2023. Horrible attitude and really poor designed machine. I regret i have to give it even one star.

I have had a issue the second season but I talked to the rep. directly and she solved my issues. I am having another issue I pulled into a neighbors dock and when I went to back out I had no power to the motor and the remote throttle showed an E30 code I tried to recalibrate it but still no power and E23 Code appeared along with a E07 Code again tried to recalibrate it and nothing I did hear a slight thunk at the prop and at one point the prop was still but vibrating. Any ideas that I could remedy on my own?

Really poorly designed product. It broke after only 100m of use.

Update re: Torqueedo's response. I tried to contact you several times already and reported the issue to multiple distributors. Not a single person returned my calls, presumably because both your employees and your distributors are also sick of dealing with your terrible products.

Responses like"quality is important to us, please call" amount to thinly-veiled marketing exercises, and are nothing short of offensive to the customer you've already failed

You have my contempt.

The plastic battery plug was damaged when i bought the product. I wasn’t aware it was damaged. And it is actually a design flaw that the competition does not have. (e-propulsion use a metal plug)

6 months of use later this led to corrosion inside of the battery and the warranty team claimed it was my fault because I unknowingly used it when it was broken. The customer service was also rude and terrible.

Therefore i was stuck with a broken £800 battery.

I sold the unit and bought an epropulsion which I recommend instead.

I purchased the 3hp Traveler model in January 2023, and have used it for approx 20 round trips between the dinghy dock and our sailboat. After 5 months, in May 2023, I got an E30 error message and it wouldn’t run. Cleaned the connections (it was removed from the dinghy, rinsed with fresh water, and stored at our home when not in use), and it still didn’t run. I contacted Torqueedo warranty service who instructed me to ship it to FL, which isn’t exactly practical as we’re sailing from St Croix to Grenada. Not impressed with the product or customer service.

Edit Aug 17, 2023 after receiving a response from Torqueedo: I appreciate the response, although the fact it came 3 months after I sent the review is frustrating. During our sail to Grenada, I re-cleaned the connections 3-4 more times, and the engine started working again. Once we got to Grenada and had the boat hauled out for hurricane season, I again washed down everything with fresh water, cleaned the connects 2x with WD40 as recommended, and stored the engine and battery inside the cabin. Hopefully it will still run when we go back this fall the retrieve the boat and sail back to St Croix. If not, I'll take you up on your offer to reach out to customer service.

I know an ocean environment is tough on mechanical and electrical components. Overall, you've designed an incredibly good product. When it works, it's amazing. But the connection design is questionable at best, particularly given how you know customers will use the product. And it was very frustrating to have problems in only a few months, given I cleaned and stored the engine and battery away from the boat when not in use.

Very disappointed. Bought one for my hobie kayak.
Almost always a problem every time I go to use it.
These do not like salt water.
Way too expensive for such poor reliability.

This company is jeopardizing the possibility to develop ELECTRIC ENGINE for a better future. them lack of understanding of a customer service is taking them image so down, that i doubt anyone will jump to E engines in the future and that is a shame in this environemental crisis we are facing.

The customer service is insane towards them customers , they have sent to a team of 5 boats equipped with Torqeedo engines wrong size cables overseas from EU to caribbean.

wrong size parts received all 5 cables were 1 meter lengh as my trequest was about 3 meters lengh. i have been forced to buy a second time the right size cables . they sent a second time the wrong size after being informed about the mistake done.

after few months the torqeedo engines are not able to work well without the powercables so basically the customer is into the impossibility to use them engines for months.

after 5 months i receive from another circuit the right 3 meter size cables so i decide to send back the 1m X10 cables to torqueedo.

first they deny the fact they received the pacakge an now i spend weeks to get payment back without been granted .

this company is following the worst exemple in terms of customer satifaction .

I bought my Travel Torqeedo around 4 years ago. The battery apparently is dangerous. I checked recently because my battery will no longer charge adequately. There was a recall a few months later (July 2019) but I was never advised. I wrote and followed instructions for the recall, I phoned twice their customer service and left a message and in addition, I wrote a letter: all of this without any acknowledgment whatsoever. Not a bad motor when it works but getting service is a real headache.