Croatia isn’t the first place most people think about when it comes to automotive innovation. But a young innovator is trying to change that. Mate Rimac – one of Forbes’ 30 entrepreneurs and game-changers under 30 in Europe – launched his own company, Rimac Automobili, to help achieve his mission to change the future of transportation.
Rimac Automobili manufactures high-performance electric vehicles and supplies electric propulsion systems to top global manufacturers of cars, ships and airplanes. And like most startups, they’ve endured challenges. Ultimately, they’ve found success in the form of Concept_One: an electric vehicle that has a power of 900 kW / 1224 hp, can go up to 100 km/h (62 mph) in 2.5 seconds, has a top speed of 355 km/h (221 mph) and a battery capacity of 90 kWh that allows a range up to 350 km (217 miles).
To reach this point, Rimac had a lot to prove. Not only was he very young, but he wanted to do something cutting-edge: show that electric propulsion systems can be used to power a new generation of sportscars and make them better, faster and more exciting. He was doing all of this in a country that offered little in the way of government financing, local investors (there are no venture capital funds in Croatia) or a market for the product they were developing. Nor does Croatia have an automobile industry, so experienced employees were hard to come by.
Despite all of those hurdles, they were able to draw on their local ‘can-do’ culture and recruit young but enthusiastic employees to build a successful startup with innovative products. They are now working extensively with automotive OEMs across the globe, but thanks to a core company belief that the technologies developed for one field can be used to improve many other products, their technology is also being applied to areas such as wheelchairs, watercraft and bikes. In fact, they’ve structured their business around this, with core-technology development teams that are focused on one product, plus application teams that apply those technologies to different sectors.
To learn more about the story of this young company and how its founder is pursuing his ambition to be a full electricification partner for global OEMs while also maintaining an agile mindset to address evolving market needs, check out a Q&A with Mate Rimac in the latest issue of Compass.
And to discover how Rimac is achieving their goals using Dassault Systemes solutions, including the 3DEXPERIENCE platform and the Electro Mobility Accelerator industry solution experience, read our recent press release describing how Rimac Automobili is building its next electric super sports car with the help of Dassault Systèmes.
This post originally appeared on our sister-blog, 3DPerspectives.com
