Flux Marine outboards and Highfield RIBs move electric boats closer to mainstream

September 26, 2025 Jeff Butler 0 Comments Flux, Highfield, Highfield Boats, Scout

Highfield Boats and Flux Marine electric motors have announced a new rigging partnership that will put electric motors into the production schedule of a major boat manufacturer and get electric motors onto the sterns of the world leader in aluminum rigid inflatable boats (RIBs).

The new partnership is a growth indicator for electric boating and major milestone for Flux as it scales production and distribution for its high performance zero-emission alternative to traditional internal combustion motors.

Accelerates delivery timelines

Highfield is known for its highly efficient and durable hull design and has been a partner of Flux Marine since 2022, when one of Flux’s first electric motor models was teamed with a Highfield 330. Since that time Flux has streamlined their model line to focus development and production attention on a single model – the FM 115HP – which was shown with a Highfield SP 660 at the Miami International Boat Show in February of 2024.

The new rigging partnership enables Highfield to accelerate North American delivery timelines of the boat – now known as the Highfield Sport 660 Electric – by installing and rigging the FM 115HP outboard at the boatbuilder’s facility in Cadillac, Michigan.

Rigging an electric outboard with a hull is more complex than a gas motor, as it also requires installing the battery, rather than just using the existing fuel tank. The production process demonstrates that Flux Marine technology fits seamlessly into established rigging operations.

“It was an amazing journey from the very first meeting with Flux Marine to today when we are in production with a really good product,” said Christophe Lavigne, President of Highfield Boats USA. “As two companies that were willing to work together to integrate a new kind of technology, we are excited to be able to accelerate delivery timelines for our customers by rigging the electric outboards on our Highfield boats right here in Michigan.”

Flux working with multiple boatyards

In addition to Highfield, Flux Marine is partnered with multiple hull OEMs to offer electrified boat packages with recreational boating partners like Scout and commercial Garvy-style work boats.

We were out on a Scout 215 XSF center console with an FM 115 and impressed by the way the hull and motor match up. Scout boats are known for the high quality of the build and for energy efficiency. The 215 has Scout’s NuV3 proprietary stepped-hull design that uses less fuel (whether that comes from atoms or electrons) and their 100% hand-laid fibreglass process provides high strength with lower resin-saturation and reduced overall weight.

Read: A great combo – Flux Marine electric outboard and the Scout 215 XSF

We haven’t been out on the Highfield Sport 660 Electric, but Owen Burke of Power & Motoryacht got a chance last week and said “With the FM115 rated at a maximum of 175 horsepower, we hit an impressive—and almost dead-quiet—25 knots (with three people aboard) in Newport Harbor.”

Flux Marine was founded in 2018 by engineering, aerospace and finance graduates from top tier schools in the US Northeast. Boating enthusiasts from a young age, they took a clean slate approach to building an electric outboard system that would take away all of the pain points associated with fossil fuel burning motors.

The first pain point was simple – efficiency. A gas outboard creates a lot of heat and noise, but only converts about 30% of available fossil fuel energy into work. An electric motor, on the other hand converts 90 – 95% of the input energy to work. The Flux team then turned to the drive train, where traditional setups lose another 15% of energy in the cogs and gears connecting a vertically spinning motor shaft to a horizontally spinning propeller shaft.

The synchronous belt drive and ingenious double channel casing they devised has an energy transfer efficiency of close to 98% and has been tested at wide open speed for over 1,300 hours without requiring any maintenance.

They construct their battery packs in-house to deliver very high continuous discharge rates and very low internal resistance, so that the packs generate such a small amount of heat that they do not need to be actively cooled. They also have high energy density so the Flux outbards can deliver range along with the high torque pep of an electric motor.

“This is an exciting milestone for Flux Marine as we expand access to more markets and dealers,” said Ben Sorkin, CEO of Flux Marine. “It shows how leading brands like Highfield are not only embracing but accelerating the shift to marine electrification. Together with our hull partners, we’re raising the bar for marine propulsion with performance-driven technology that delivers the true thrill of electric boating.”