Yeah I mean I'm not sure why this article was posted to HN. It might as well have been an IFLS link because New Atlas is similar shit quality. But what can we do?

They at least link to the company's website where much more detail can be found (Remember, this is HN, we can get links changed!). If you're going to dismiss a technology, I'm saying be specific (Remember, this is HN, we have engineers and people with actual expertise. This is a technical website, be technical!). I don't know enough about this tech though I do have experience in physical engineering (I'm not in ML, so I'll keep any strong claims to that area).

I can't say much, but at least what I can tell is that the Voith Schneider is made by a single company (according to Wiki). If all this is is a different enough Voith Schneider motor and now there is competition in the space, I'd be okay with that too and wouldn't phrase it like the OP bur rather make this the point and note that the rest is market. But again, I don't know much about motors and even less about marine motors, so I'm not really going to make any hard claims because I don't know. But if this is all that it is, I think my point still stands and you can make a reasonable enough inference of the main point to adapt to competition and improvements (which again, are small steps). Clearly this isn't an exact clone.