That was an umbrella Corp under volvo penta I believe. They shut it down. My thinking was because of the engine supply from GM, however just a guess. Seeing as how GM is going all electric I presume the manufacturing of V8 engines will be erased in a few years.
GM and Ford both sell a good number of crate engines each year, and the market is growing steadily. The overheads for standalone engines are pretty low since the zillion other systems in a car or truck are gone, and there's no need for new styling and certification every year. I suspect crate engine demand will continue to grow even as EVs become bigger sellers than ICE vehicles. One GM or Ford assembly plant could cover all their needs for a long time.
I remember Volvo saying they were working on an electric outboard. Don't know how anyone will ever pull that off. If anyone ever does, it will be surely expensive.
Seems a certainty that the hull and electric power would have to be integrated, battery built into hull. Existing battery tech isn't sufficiently energy-dense to provide reasonable range in a size form that would fit in available spaces in typical boat. So that would take an electric concept completely out of the repower market and put it in the OEM world only. That has been the path to profitability in recent decades, hence the cross ownership of boat builders and outboards such as Brunswick Corp (Mercury, Mercruiser, Bayliner, Sea Ray, Crestliner, Boston Whaler, Lund, Thunder Jet), you'd think Brunswick would be the likely one to try electric by floating off another niche boat brand that would be dedicated to electric power.
But then would there be any point in going with an electric outboard? The old issues with inboard in smallish boats (access for maintenance, doghouse taking up deck space) would largely disappear, since the electric motor is much more compact than an ICE, and there's close to zero maintenance. Skippers of big Florida CCs will realise they don't need to repower every 500 hours because number of moving parts dropped to below 10% of a what gas outboard has. That's been another outboard advantage of late, but it become irrelevant with electric power.
Seems to me that the first fully electric boats will be boutique built integrated hull and power packages. My guess is the noise and fury around electric will remain in the automotive world for a while yet. The car and truck guys will have all the battery production tied up for a few years as they make the transition, niche builders in the recreational products areas like boats, sled, dirt bikes etc might have to hold back until the madness eases up a bit and allows them to bring out those initial models at sub-stratospheric prices.