Porsche has just announced that it is buying a ten percent stake in Croatian sports car company Rimac Automobili and has the intention to create a development partnership for EV technology.
Rimac was founded in 2009 by Mate Rimac and now develops and produces electric hypercars, drivetrains and battery systems. The company's first model, the Concept One, is widely regarded at the moment as the world's fastest production electric vehicle. Although the company is keen to manufacture and market high-performance vehicles under its own brand name, it's also known for developing and producing battery packs, drivetrain systems and full vehicles for other companies.
Porsche and the rest of the VW Group are fully committed to hybrids, plug-in hybrids and all-electric models, but Rimac is already at another level as far as high-performance electrified powertrains are concerned. In fact, the Concept One became world famous when "The Grand Tour" presenter Richard Hammond lost control of one and crashed it in some considerable style. The company is currently hard at work developing the Concept Two, which earlier this year was previewed at the Geneva Motor Show.
Lutz Meschke, the deputy board chairman at Porsche, said of the Rimac tie-up: "Rimac has impressively demonstrated its credentials in the field of electromobility. We feel that Rimac's ideas and approaches are extremely promising, which is why we hope to enter into close collaboration with the company in the form of a development partnership."
If anyone is wondering what Porsche finds so interesting about Rimac and its technology they only need to look at a couple of significant numbers mentioned in the announcement about the partnership. In it there's the mention of the Concept Two having a range of 400 miles, and then there's the claim it will be able to reach 80 percent of a full charge in just 30 minutes from a 250 kW fast-charger.
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