Since I'm the type that refuses to read instructions unless someone is bleeding, when this boat refused to respond to the controller, I immediately thought it was defective and started disassembling it to try to find a loose wire, only to have my kid tell me that the instructions says it will only work in water, lo and behold, that did the trick.So it turns out that the motor requires water cooling, and I suspect it is a good safety measure as well, since the propellers spin so fast, they could cut a kid's finger if turned on accidentally. In any case, once in water, it worked perfectly and it is faster than my other 1:18 scale RC boat. The auto-recover function is fun but doesn't always work, it may have something to do with battery level, but it is a fun feature nevertheless.At $80 with coupon, this is considerably faster and better built than the boats in the $30-$40 range, and more responsive to the remote control as well. I do recommend get 2 or more as it can become quite monotonous after a while if there is only 1 boat and children get bored fast. I will look into adding a waterproof go-pro or something to the boat to make it even more enjoyable, the motor is plenty powerful and the body has plenty of mounting points for add-ons. This boat would be a good host for tinkering.