Mate Rimac, the founder and chief executive officer of Rimac Group.Courtesy of manufacturer
The rapid ascension of Croatian electric vehicle prodigy Mate Rimac through the ranks of the global auto industry has become the stuff of legend among car enthusiasts.
The 36-year-old founder and chief executive officer of Rimac Group went from building an EV in his garage in 2008, to selling multimillion-dollar electric supercars in 2013, to taking the reins of historic French supercar brand Bugatti in 2021, to raking in several major investments from Porsche, most recently in 2022, and earlier this year becoming a go-to supplier of EV battery packs for BMW.
Ex-Formula 1 World Champion Nico Rosberg was the first customer to take delivery of the roughly $3-million Rimac Nevera supercar in 2022. The car’s performance in “drift” mode was so extreme even Rosberg nearly smashed it into a cliff wall in Monaco.
While the Nevera supercar and its world-beating performance made headlines, Rimac’s business is shifting. The company is becoming a high-volume supplier of battery packs, recently securing a long-term deal with BMW. From its new campus and existing facilities, Rimac Technology says it will be able to produce up to 75,000 battery packs a year.
The throughline in all of Rimac’s ventures is fun; he’s a car enthusiast to the core – with an impressive collection of new and old cars to prove it – and everything he touches seems built to entertain drivers.
I sat down with him during the Toronto auto show in February to discuss near-death experiences, what makes a good EV, what distinguishes Rimac’s technology and why he “hated” driving his Model S Plaid, even though he’s a fan of Tesla.
The Rimac Nevera on display at the 2024 Canadian International AutoShow on Feb. 15.Liisa Robbins/The Globe and Mail
You’ve previously talked about bootstrapping your company – how it always felt like the firm was near death in those early years. But what about you? Were you ever personally in danger?
I risked my life many times. I got electrocuted building my first electric BMW in my garage. I actually know how it feels to get shocked by AC current and by DC current.
Which one was better?
DC is like a really hard punch, but you get one punch. AC is like a lot of small punches.
And what were those near-death experiences for your company?
My first business plan, I was like, ‘I need €4.5-million’ ($6.7-million). I was 20 years old. And of course I had no idea what I was doing. And luckily, thank God, I didn’t have an internship or something. If I [had been] an intern at BMW for one day, I would have known that [it costs] 4.5-million to develop a rear mirror. Literally. I know that today. [Developing] a steering wheel, even for Bugatti, costs like $5-million. You need to pay for the airbag, for buttons, crash testing.
It can’t have been an easy pitch: I want to build electric supercars in Croatia.
In Croatia, there is no auto industry, there was no talent. There was no automotive university, but there was a mechanical engineering university teaching shipbuilding. I told them I want to build a car. They told me it’s impossible to build a car in Croatia. They told me the sooner you give up, the less people will go down with you. So, no help there. I couldn’t afford to hire foreigners. So I just hired a few guys that I knew. One of these three original guys is still in the company. Two left, but we have a really good relationship still.
I rented a building and we were like: Let’s go. But the investors, they didn’t respect our agreement. They sent a little bit of money, but they never sent real money.
I couldn’t pay rent. Suppliers were calling me and threatening. We literally had the electricity company coming to cut off our electricity. This was 2011. That was how the company started. And it went on like this, basically, until a few years ago.
Why are all these major car companies – BMW and Hyundai – coming to Rimac now for high-voltage batteries?
It’s not magic. It’s like, why is Ferrari making the best naturally aspirated V12s? It’s because that’s their business. I just started before everybody else to work exclusively on high-performance electric powertrains and batteries at a time when the company was tiny and we could be really fast, much faster than the big guys.
What kind of technological edge has that given the company today?
We saw where the industry is going. We developed a really flexible battery pack that’s right there in terms of the best performance and cost, and especially the ratio of performance versus cost. But it’s super adaptable so that we can, with relatively low investments and quick timing, adapt it to a completely different car. And that’s really our advantage.
In the same constraints, the same package and housing, [we can] give them a battery pack that has 30 or 40 per cent more performance.
What makes a great electric car?
My daily driver was a BMW M5 for three years, then a Porsche Taycan for three years and then a Tesla Model S Plaid. The Taycan is a great car to drive. Great, but a super limited driving range. I’m talking about the previous model, not the current model. And the smartphone app was really bad. The Tesla Model S Plaid has a great app, has plenty of space, has a somewhat-better range but not that much better. But, I hate it. I mean, I’m a huge Tesla fan and a fan of Elon Musk. I think what they’re doing is great. But me as a car guy, I hated myself every morning getting in the car: the yoke-shaped steering wheel, the buttons on the steering wheel, the door handle that several times pinched my fingers. The phone-as-key doesn’t work. The carpet … but for somebody who doesn’t care about cars, like tech people, maybe they wouldn’t notice those things.
For me, the Taycan was the best car to get around town. I loved it. There wasn’t any disadvantage of that car compared to the M5 – except drifting, that doesn’t go well in the Taycan. But I love that car.
I think the time is over for excusing all the stuff that’s not good, like with a Tesla. That could work five years ago when you didn’t have offerings from other [manufacturers], but now when you do, it’s unacceptable. For example, [the Tesla’s] interior on a car that costs $100,000 is just unacceptable in my opinion.
While the Nevera supercar and its world-beating performance made headlines, Rimac’s business is shifting.Petrina Gentile/The Globe and Mail
There were reports early this year your company is planning to roll out an autonomous robotaxi service. Can you say anything about that yet?
We’re going to announce later this year our new robotaxi business. We kept it completely under the radar. We came very far with it. It’s a car developed from the ground up.
Why now, when other companies – apart from Tesla, anyway – seem to be scaling back on their self-driving vehicle ambitions?
I was always swimming against the current. I think very long term.
Do you think that’s been the key to your successes so far? Swimming against the current?
I think so. You can call it stubbornness, craziness, I don’t know. Yeah.
This interview has been edited and condensed.