history
Rimac stormed the automotive world in 2011 when it unveiled the Concept One at the Frankfurt Motor Show. It was the fastest accelerating electric vehicle in 2013 when it came out on the market. But the story of this Croatian carmaker started a few years before, when Mate Rimac, the owner of the company, decided to go full-electric with his BMW E30 drift car.
Mate Rimac established the company in 2009 and started developing an electric powertrain for his car, but he achieved more than that. With a team of friends, he began to create a 600 PS (593 hp) electric version of the BMW, and the result was stunning. The car, named "Green Monster," achieved five records in FIA-sanctioned acceleration events in 2011. This gained a lot of attention, and soon investors started to pour money into the Rimac company, which helped him unveil the first concept car. The idea was to build 88 products, but in the end, it lowered that figure to just eight. Nothing was bought from the shelves. Instead, everything was custom-built by the small Croatian team.
His team's ideas were converted into patents sold to other carmakers who had already started developing electric cars. But Mate and his team didn't lose focus on creating a Croatian hypercar. Instead, they did a surprising marketing stunt by advertising the company with the Concept One model as an official vehicle for the first Formula E championship in 2014.
Later on, by advancing into developments and with secured funding after selling the first eight vehicles, Rimac evolved into a supplier for big carmakers in the industry such as Hyundai or Porsche. The evolution continued, and, in 2018, Porsche bought 10% of the Croatian carmaker and pushed them into the world arena under the spotlights. Moreover, the evolution led to more people coming into the company. By 2020, there were already 1,000 employees who were either developing or building the next vehicle, the Nevera. Just remember that Rimac was a small garage shop that fitted an old BMW with an electric powertrain developed from scratch one decade before.
With the Nevera, Rimac made the final step into the world of hypercars manufacturers. It was developed from scratch. Even some tools were invented for this hypercar that managed to be the fastest production vehicle on Earth, independently tested by various journalists. But the story didn't end there. In 2021, Rimac got a 55% stake in Bugatti, while Audi held 45% in the new joint-venture named Bugatti Rimac. Thus, not only the Rimac brand was secured, but also further developments for the French brand were granted. By 2022, despite the drawbacks caused by the world pandemic, Rimac started delivering the Nevera hypercar, threatening other, more famous brands worldwide.
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