Rimac And Bugatti Unite, New Model Of Electric Hypercar Coming Soon
JAKARTA - Rimac and Bugatti recently combined their strengths to form a new company called, Bugatti Rimac. Mate Rimac, founder of the Croatian electric car company, said the two companies had agreed to "gather knowledge, technology and assets with the aim of creating a very special project in the future.
In short, Bugatti and Rimac will continue as separate brands, maintaining their existing manufacturing and distribution network. Going forward, there will be no hypercar bearing the Bugatti-Rimac badge. This new Bugatti Rimac company will be tasked with developing future vehicles with the Bugatti and Rimac badge by simply combining resources and expertise.
The joint venture will employ 430 people directly. The cooperation will begin at the end of 2021. There are 300 people at the new Bugatti Rimac headquarters in Zagreb and 130 people at Bugatti's headquarters in Molsheim, France.
Now and then, Bugattis will still be built in Molsheim. The French car factory is owned or controlled by Piech Porsche, the grandson of Ferdinand Porsche, the founder of the German Porsche car factory. Porsche itself has a big hand in the merger of these two companies.
Now both Rimac and Bugatti will continue to produce the Nevara from Rimac and the Chiron from Bugatti itself for the foreseeable future. Vice versa.
“We're not just going to put a Bugatti badge on the Nevera, and we're not just adding hybrid technology to the Chiron. We are developing something new for Bugatti," said Rimac.
More specifically, the Rimac Mate has confirmed that the Rimac combustion engine will live in the all-new Bugatti models that will appear before the end of the decade.
“New history for Bugatti means we can make more than just a hypercar. There's an opportunity here to make some really interesting cars," Rimac explained with a big smile.
In this partnership, Mate Rimac will become the new CEO of Bugatti-Rimac. Rimac Group will own 55 percent of the new company and Porsche the remaining 45 percent. While Porsche itself also owns 24 percent of the Rimac Group, the company that first invested in an electric car specialist in 2018.
For now, Porsche and Rimac say that the Bugatti-Rimac will continue. Production of the Bugatti Chiron, a petrol V16-powered hypercar, and the Rimac Nevera, an electric hypercar were also made in very limited numbers.
Porsche CEO Oliver Blume and Rimac Mate CEO Rimac thought this was the best deal.
"You know the easiest thing, what some might expect might happen, is to take a Nevara and slam a Bugatti on it and call it a Bugatti, but that's absolutely not going to happen," Rimac said.
"We're not going to just recycle what we have, we're not going to like just rearranging the Chiron to make a new car, or just hybridizing the Chiron. We are developing a complete new product from the ground up, everyone. Because we think it's for the best. way to go, and that product will still have a combustion engine," said Rimac.