Rimac now runs Bugatti
A Croatian EV start-up run by a 33-year-old has joined forces with a 112-year-old automotive giant... we answer your questions.
EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT RIMAC NOW RUNS BUGATTI
Car biz news doesn’t get any juicier than this: Rimac and Bugatti are combining forces to form a new company, Bugatti Rimac, with Rimac calling the shots. According to Mate Rimac, the man on course for full world domination, both companies have agreed to “pool our knowledge, technologies and assets with the goal of creating very special projects in the future”. In other words a fledgling Croatian EV start-up has just been handed the keys to the grandest car company in the universe.
DOES THIS MEAN ALL FUTURE BUGATTIS WILL BE PURE ELECTRIC?
In a word... no. Here’s Mate: “What people expect is for us to take the Nevera and slam a Bugatti logo on it, but that’s not going to happen. We will not just restyle the Chiron to make a new car, or just hybridise the Chiron, we are developing a completely new product from the ground up. And that product will still have a combustion engine. “Bugatti has a lot of diversity in its heritage that can be used to make products that are not only hypercars, but ones that are both strongly electrified and fully electric. Within this decade there will be fully electric Bugattis, but at the end of this decade there will still be combustion-engined hybrid Bugattis. There is still time for the combustion engine at Bugatti.”
WHAT HAPPENS IN THE SHORT TERM?
While Mate Rimac beavers away in the background dreaming up his product plans, it’ll be business as usual for a bit. Rimac and Bugatti will continue as separate brands, both will continue to produce the Nevera and Chiron respectively for the foreseeable future, and both retain their existing factories and distribution networks. This new Bugatti Rimac company will directly employee 430 people when it all kicks off at the end of 2021 – 300 at the new Bugatti Rimac headquarters in Zagreb (on the recently announced €200m Rimac Campus) and 130 at the Bugatti HQ in Molsheim, France. Now and in the future, Bugattis will be built in France, Rimacs will be made in Croatia.
HOW DOES THE DEAL WORK?
No money has changed hands, instead a newly formed Rimac Group (37 per cent owned by Mate Rimac, 24 per cent by Porsche, 12 per cent Hyundai Motor Group and 27 per cent other investors) is the umbrella company for both Bugatti Rimac (55 per cent owned by Rimac Group, 45 per cent by Porsche) and Rimac Technology (100 per cent owned by the Rimac Group).
Rimac Technology remains an independent company that will continue to work with a who’s who of global car companies on EV powertrains, batteries and components. Porsche is the lynchpin to the whole thing. In return for its 45 per cent stake in the new Bugatti Rimac company (on top of the 24 per cent stake it already has in Rimac) Porsche takes ownership of Bugatti from the VW Group and brings it into the joint venture. Porsche calls itself a financial and strategic partner in the deal.
WHO’S THE BOSS?
Mate Rimac, a 33-year-old man who only founded Rimac Automobili in 2009, only hired his first employees in 2011, and now finds himself the CEO of the Rimac Group and running both Bugatti Rimac and Rimac Technology. Busy boy.
In an online Q&A session Mate, flanked by Porsche CEO Oliver Blume and Porsche CFO Lutz Meschke, had the energy and joy of someone who couldn’t quite believe he’d been handed the keys to a brand like Bugatti. And why wouldn’t he? The rise of Rimac is a story for the ages. Let’s pray the corporate demands don’t bog him down.
WHAT ABOUT A PORSCHE E-HYPERCAR?
Possibly, definitely not a no. Porsche CEO, Oliver Blume: “We haven’t decided yet what type of supercar we will develop and when we will develop it. What is clear is Porsche has always developed supercars and hypercars, and we will continue. It might be an option to co-operate with the new joint venture, but we haven’t decided yet.” Cagey.
WHY DID VW WANT RID OF BUGATTI?
By offloading an R&D heavy, financially draining business like Bugatti it can focus on its more lucrative mass production brands, and the full scale transition to electric cars... but without losing Bugatti entirely and sharing in its future profits through Porsche. Meanwhile Porsche is positioned perfectly to benefit from Rimac’s electric know-how, and let that tech trickle down to other VW Group companies like Audi and Lamborghini, where appropriate.
Porsche CFO Lutz Meschke makes an excellent point. That Bugatti developing a new electric hypercar on its own to the standards its buyers expect is... tricky. “The mid-term future for Bugatti has to be electric and for a small brand to develop a completely new car on its own is almost impossible. For me, this is the only way to develop Bugatti to a profitable future.”
No fooling us, Mate; you’re now one of the biggest names in the automotive industry.