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Photo: CNBC Television | YouTube / Bugatti
Mate Rimac is the man who started an era in the car industry: the era of the electric hypercar. He came up with the Rimac Concept_One, geniusly engineering a quad-motor system that produced over 1,200 horsepower. Now, nearly 20 years later, he says EVs are no longer the future. Big ICEs are!
Mate Rimac started out in the car business as a garage tinkerer and grew into a global automotive titan. It all started the moment he blew the engine of an old BMW during a race. Instead of using conventional spare parts to fix it, the then-21-year-old Croatian young man turned a catastrophic engine failure into one hell of a story.
The beat-up, run-down BMW became a high-performance electric machine in his hands. He wanted to prove that electric motors weren not just for golf carts, but could actually outrun gas-powered engines on the track and on the road both. And he nailed it, because his “Green Monster” began shattering speed records. It was basically the beginning of Mate’s company, Rimac Automobili.
And he founded it in Croatia, a country with absolutely no automotive background, gathering a small team to build a completely original car from scratch. This is how the Rimac Concept_One came out in 2011, officially unveiled at that year’s Frankfurt Motor Show, when motor shows were still a thing.
Photo: Rimac Automobili
The concept car previewed the world’s first electric hypercar. A quad-motor setup put out 1,088 horsepower (1,103 metric horsepower) and 2,065 pound-feet (2,800 Newton meters) of torque for a run from 0 to 62 (0 to 100 kph) in 2.8 seconds and a top speed of 190 mph (305 kph).
The Rimac Concept One production version arrived five years later, and it was dialed up to produce 1,224 horsepower (1,241 metric horsepower), but the engineers toned down the torque to 1,180 pound-feet (1,600 Newton meters). Those figures made it rocket from zero to hero (0 to 60 mph or 0 to 97 kph) in just 2.4 seconds and max out at 221 mph (335 kph). Oh, yes, that was a big deal at the time.
Rimac’s engineering genius led to the mind-blowing Rimac Nevera, the 1,914-horsepower (1,941 metric horsepower) hypercar that broke no fewer than 23 performance records in a single day. Then, Rimac raised the bar by launching the track-focused Nevera R, which broke 24 world speed and braking records.
The list included a 0 to 60 mph time in 1.66 seconds, a quarter-mile time in 7.9 seconds, and the Nurburgring lap record in 7 minutes and 5.298 seconds. Mate Rimac gained territory and credit in the hypercar world, so in November 2021, the founder and CEO of Rimac Automobili joined Bugatti, marketing the official launch of Bugatti Rimac and gaining control of Bugatti from Porsche and Volkswagen.
The Swiss watch phaseThis is how he went from insane zero-tailpipe-emission performance to massive, loud, and proud internal combustion engines, with an automaker that has been defying downsizing trends. Now, he says that this is the future: old-school combustion engines.
Photo: CNBC Television | YouTube
In a conversation with CNBC, Mate Rimac says the supercar market is going head-first into its “Swiss watch phase,” with the wealthiest buyers slamming high-tech electronics and electric vehicles in favor of precision mechanics.
That is exactly why Ferrari’s first EV has faced backlash since day one, being called anything from “iPhone on wheels” to “Ferrari Multipla,” as a reference to the first-generation Fiat Multipla, widely regarded as the world’s ugliest car.
While everyone expected Bugatti to build its first EV, the hypercar maker rolled out the hybrid Tourbillon, which meant the debut of the new 8.3-liter V16 with naturally aspirated firepower, which replaced the ageing 8.0-liter quad-turbocharged W16.
The Tourbillon’s hybrid powertrain pumps out 1,775 horsepower (1,800 metric horsepower) and 2,213 pound-feet (3,000 Newton meters) of torque. Those push it from 0 to 60 in just 1.9 seconds and all the way to a top speed of 236 mph (380 kph) or 276 mph (445 kph) with the Speed Key.
The internal combustion engines are here to stay”It’s kind of ironic that I’m now making the world’s biggest combustion engine. You have the crazy situation now at our facility in Croatia. On the same production line, you have the world’s most powerful electric car being built right next to the world’s biggest combustion engine,” the 38-year-old engineering guru says.
Photo: Bugatti
He explains that for normal people, the industry is, indeed, going electric. In the meantime, the upper segment, like sports cars and upwards, is going to stick to combustion engines for a very long time. “Exactly like watches,” Mate Rimac says. And it sounds like he will be there to make sure it goes according to plan.
His plan is to make the world’s best and most exciting cars. That’s ambitious for a kid who started out with a run-down BMW and an engine failure.
