Vision Marine Acquires Complimentary Intellectual Property Assets from MAC Engineering, a Ground-Breaking Designer of Electric Vehicle Propulsion and Battery Management Systems

Acquisition significantly strengthens Vision’s leadership in electric boat powertrains

MONTREAL, Feb. 23, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Vision Marine Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: VMAR) (“Vision Marine” or the “Company”), a leader in transforming the boating market by designing and manufacturing environmentally friendly electric boats and propulsion systems, is pleased to announce today that it has acquired MAC Engineering's intellectual property relating to marine outboard electronic systems. MAC Engineering, the European distributor of the UQM brand, and one of the global leaders in medium and high-power electric motors in the USA, is the highly regarded designer of propulsion and battery management systems and components for electric vehicles.

Under the terms of the transaction, Vision Marine has acquired all of MAC’s electric technological components, know-how and software relating to the manufacture, production, use, sale, rental and distribution of marine outboard electronic systems.

Vision Marine is also pleased to announce that Xavier Montagne, Chief Executive Officer of MAC Engineering, will be joining Vision Marine as its Chief Technology Officer. In his role as CTO, Montagne will oversee all design and operations of Vision Marine’s revolutionary E-Motion powertrain, the first fully electric 180 hp integrated outboard system.

In his role as CEO and Senior Engineer at MAC Engineering, Mr. Montagne was responsible for electronic architecture design, product selection, integration, fine tuning, optimization, and overall performance. Prior to MAC Engineering, Mr. Montagne was senior designer for Foresee Power, Panasonic, and Saft in Europe, designing low and high voltage battery management systems. 

Mr. Montagne was involved in the development of the sports version of the Renault ZOE, using his expertise to help design the powertrain definition, conception, and assembly. This technology, used in the automotive sports and concept car market, will soon be implemented into Vision Marine’s own electric propulsion system. This car has been used to open Formula E shows and was driven by the legendary French race car driver Alain Prost.

Xavier Montagne commented, “I am very excited to be joining the Vision Marine team and to be able to continue working with such an interesting and forward-looking company. We share a passion for delivering superior performance in electric boats, and I look forward to further solidifying Vision’s leadership in this arena by rolling out our disruptive powertrain to OEMs.”