Rimac in front of a model of the Nevera
Image: Rimac Group
The Croatian Mate Rimac has a passion for super sports cars and was interested in electric drives for cars early on. He had to put up with a lot of ridicule for this. Today he is considered a prodigy of the European car industry.
Europe’s star of the new e-car world is called Mate Rimac. The 35-year-old Croatian started in a garage, now builds super-fast sports cars with four electric motors and more than 1,800 hp (1,300 kW), is the head of a group of companies with 1,300 employees and at the same time the majority shareholder in the car manufacturer Bugatti, which is surrounded by many myths.
In the style of previous races for superlatives, the company founder rented a test site for his current electric super sports car Rimac Nevera in Papenburg, Germany, in the spring, hired two independent testing organizations and then ran a program for 23 records. For example, acceleration from zero to 300 kilometers per hour in 9.2 seconds, from zero to 400 in 21.3 seconds and from zero to 400 kilometers per hour and back to zero in 29.9 seconds. Rimac was particularly proud that his car accelerated to 400 kilometers per hour faster than that of his former childhood idol, the McLaren F1, at 350 kilometers per hour.