With the Tesla Model S doing so well, it’s a bit surprising that you don’t see more companies trying to make wicked-awesome electric cars designed electric from the ground up.
Well, one company has been aiming to do so for awhile now — the Croatian company Rimac Automobili. The Rimac Concept_One is certainly a beauty, and if it’s built as aimed, it could qualify for that “supercar” classification. It is supposed to go from 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph) in 2.8 seconds, have 1,088 horsepower, and be insanely luxurious.
Introduced several years ago, I’ve been wondering what happened to the concept. Apparently, it hasn’t died, as it just recently landed a full €10 million ($12.5 million) in Series A investment. The value of the company as a whole is now €70 million ($87 million), according to the company.
The CEO, Mate Rimac (pictured below), started the company in his garage after a successful conversion of a BMW M3 that became one of the fastest electric cars in the world.
With apparently a keen eye for going overboard, the Rimac Concept_One is supposed to have a price tag of $1 million. (In other words, not a whole lot will hit the market.)
Chris DeMorro of GAS2 notes, however, that Rimac has been working on more than this supercar for the super rich.
Since the 2009 founding of the company, Rimac has also started the Greyp electric bicycle project, announced intentions to supply powertrain parts for electric vehicles, and started a partnership with Formula E to provide fans with test drives.
In his spare time, he also had his engineering team improve a fan’s wheelchair with some of his patented electric motor and battery management technology. The dude is alright is my book for that reason alone, though watching an electric supercar lay waste to a gas-guzzling Ferrari is pretty entertaining.
Of course, comparisons will be made to Tesla, and it seems Rimac is happy with that. I mean, look at the logo and background color on the launch ceremony posters here and tell me Rimac isn’t asking for it:
But with the planned production of just 88 vehicles in 2015, and no mass-market vehicles in sight, it’ll be a long time before Rimac is anywhere near the level Tesla is today (if it can ever get to such a place). Nonetheless, it’s a company I’m keeping an eye on.
Source: http://cleantechnica.com/2014/12/03/electric-supercar-rimac-automobili-planned-2015-production/
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