Mate Rimac

Mate Rimac (Croatian pronunciation: [mǎːte rǐːmats]; born 12 February 1988)[1] is a Croatian innovator,[2][3] entrepreneur,[4] and founder of the Croatian electric sports car company Rimac Automobili and Greyp Bikes, a high-tech eBike and eBike technology company.

Mate Rimac
Born (1988-02-12) 12 February 1988
Livno, SR Bosnia and Herzegovina, Yugoslavia
NationalityCroat
Alma materVERN University of Applied Science
Occupations
Title
  • CEO of Rimac Group
Spouse
Katarina Lovrić
​
(m. 2021)​
AwardsOrder of Danica Hrvatska

During his high-school years, Rimac won[5] local, national and international competitions for electronics and innovation. At 19 years old, Rimac started to convert an old 1984 BMW 3 Series into an electric car in his garage.[6] The vehicle broke several world records for electric cars.[7] He then went on to create his first all-electric supercar from the ground up, the Concept One, in 2011 at the age of 23.[8]

His company, Rimac Automobili, went from its first employees in 2011 to more than 1000 employees in 2020, attracting major investment from Porsche AG, Hyundai-Kia and Camel Group, one of Asia's largest battery manufacturers. In addition to developing and manufacturing their own electric sports cars, Rimac provides electric vehicle technologies and systems for many big names of the auto industry.[9] It is currently publicly known to be working with, or producing components for, Porsche, Hyundai, Kia, Renault, Jaguar, Aston Martin, SEAT, Koenigsegg and Automobili Pininfarina. Rimac's second car, designed, engineered, and built in-house, is the Nevera, with first customer deliveries expected in 2021.[10]

Rimac has previously turned down offers to move his business out of the country, stating that his goal is to bring automotive manufacturers to Croatia.[3][11][4] Motor Trend has ranked Rimac ninth on their list of the biggest players in the auto industry,[12] Forbes named Rimac one of the Top 30 Under 30, the 30 best entrepreneurs under the age of 30 of the world, in 2017.[13] Rimac was named the Croatian Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017 by EY Hrvatska (Ernst&Young Croatia).[4]

Early life

Rimac was born in Livno, SR Bosnia and Herzegovina, SFR Yugoslavia (present day Bosnia and Herzegovina) in 1988 to Zdenka and Ivan Rimac. The family temporarily moved to Frankfurt, Germany in 1991, when he was three years old, to escape the nascent Yugoslav Wars which had rendered the family's home region uninhabitable.[14] The family lived in Germany until 2000, after which they moved to Croatia, settling in Samobor, where Rimac's father founded a real estate company.[15]

Moving from Germany to Croatia, Rimac has admitted that it was hard for him to adapt and keep up in school. He was bullied for having a Bosnian accent.[16] However, Rimac was fascinated by cars and technology and was working in his parents' garage on his own projects. During high school, Rimac's teacher and later mentor, Ivan Vlainić, convinced him to participate at a local competition for electronics.[17] Mate did not have high hopes as he did not excel at school but, nevertheless, he won the first prize. After that, Mate competed on a national level, where he also achieved top spot, which led him to represent Croatia in global competitions for electronics and innovation.

In 2005, Rimac built a device that replaced the computer keyboard and mouse with a glove, which he called the iGlove.[18] Shortly after, Rimac invented a rear-view mirror system for avoiding a vehicle's blind spot, called Active Mirror System, which won an award at the IENA international trade fair 2006 in Nuremberg, Germany.[19] At age 17, Rimac applied for two international patents for his inventions.[20] Rimac won numerous awards in international competitions for electronics and innovation before turning 18, in South Korea, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Malaysia and Croatia.[21] Rimac attended the VERN University of Applied Science from 2007. He obtained a bachelor's degree in Entrepreneurial Management in 2010.[15]

Rimac later admitted that if it wasn't for his high-school teacher Ivan Vlainić, who pushed him to compete at electronics and innovation competitions, he might have never built a company as those early successes taught him how to build something and have self-confidence.[22] Being fascinated by cars all his life and wanting to enter into the world of racing, Rimac bought a 1984 BMW E30 323i at the age of 18 in 2006 as that seemed to be the cheapest way to get into racing.[23] After the gasoline engine exploded during one race, he decided to turn the car into an electric one, inspired by the innovations of his idol Nikola Tesla.[24] His peers mocked him for racing with an electric car – for bringing a "washing machine" to the race track.[25][26]

After many upgrades, and a total of seven different iterations where all of the key components of the car were replaced with Rimac's new developments, the car became faster, winning races and gaining attention. It soon drew attention to the benefits of electric power and Rimac's talents as an engineer, in addition to setting a number of world FIA and Guinness records.[27] Seeing the potential in electric performance, Mate decided to found a company to build electric cars. Initially called VST Conversions (v=s/t being the formula for speed),[28] Rimac offered conversions of traditional vehicles to EVs. The company that would eventually turn out to be Rimac Automobili was founded in September 2009, when Rimac was 21.

Career

Rimac Automobili
Main article: Rimac Automobili
Rimac Concept One at the 2011 Frankfurt Motor Show

While the company was founded in 2009, Rimac had no employees until 2011. In 2010, Rimac met Adriano Mudri, who was a designer at General Motors at that time. Rimac proposed to Mudri to develop an electric supercar together. They agreed and started working on a concept as a paper exercise. Rimac was a university student while Mudri was working for GM so both of them worked on the project during nights and weekends: Rimac on the technology and Mudri on the design.

By late 2010, they had the first renderings, technical concepts and target specifications. At that time, Rimac was receiving media attention for his BMW conversion that was winning various races. That brought the attention of a fellow Croatian working for a middle-eastern royal family, who asked Rimac to provide materials about the project that he was working on as the royal family might be interested in such projects. Rimac and Mudri prepared a brochure with renderings and technical specifications of the car that they were working on and soon got a call that the royal family was interested in buying two cars. As Rimac, at the time, had no real company, employees or other resources, he told the potential customers that he could not build the car. The customers then offered to invest in Rimac's efforts to enable him to build the car. Rimac started to work on a business plan and received a proposal from the investors shortly thereafter. After receiving the first installment of the investment, Rimac convinced a handful of people to join his company as the first employees. However, after some time, the investors did not respect the agreements and made an ultimatum: to move the company to the Middle-East or they would stop the funding.

Rimac was already struggling to pay salaries, rent and suppliers while trying to build the first prototype of the Concept_One with an inexperienced team. With his back against the wall, desperately needing the investor's money, Rimac still decided to refuse to move the company to the Middle East and as a result, lost his only investors. "It was the best thing I've ever done," he said years later, as this move allowed him to keep the company in Croatia.[29] Left with no other choice, Rimac decided to find engineering work for the struggling young company as a revenue stream, while trying to keep the development of the car going. Rimac started to work for other automotive companies to develop batteries, electric powertrain systems or full vehicles as a means of survival, while, at the same time, building their own supercars and trying to find investors to fund bringing their own cars to the market.

Rimac always wanted to show that it was possible to build a car and a car company in Croatia. When he had started the company as a 21-year-old, he had no automotive experience and being from Croatia, a country with little automotive industry, he could not hire anybody with experience. Likewise, he did not have the financial means to attract foreign staff to bring in experience. He asked the University for Mechanical Engineering in Zagreb for help to develop the car, but was told by a professor that it was impossible to build a car in Croatia and that he should give up.

Rimac presented their first model, the Rimac Concept_One, at the 2011 Frankfurt Motor Show.[30] Adriano Mudri has worked with Rimac ever since and is Rimac's Director of Design today.

During the initial years, Rimac was always on the edge of survival and having a hard time attracting investors to put money into a Croatian tech company. However, after years of proving themselves to the industry, Rimac grew and eventually attracted significant investment from companies such as Porsche,[31] Hyundai and Kia.[32]

In 2018 Rimac introduced its next generation sports car, the Nevera (renamed from C_Two). After undergoing final development and testing in 2020, production and customer deliveries were planned for 2021. As of 2021, the company is headquartered in Croatia, employs over 900 people and has grown into a leader within a highly competitive industry with the ambition to become a Tier 1 supplier to many OEMs. The company is vertically integrated with many of the components produced in-house.

The next challenge is to grow from a low volume manufacturer of complex high-end electrification components, to an established Tier 1 supplier for the industry. Rimac plans to open new high-volume production lines for battery packs, powertrain systems and the Nevera sportscar.

On 2 November 2021, Rimac was announced CEO of Bugatti Rimac, a joint partnership between the Rimac Group, Bugatti, and Porsche AG.[33]

Greyp Bikes

In 2013, Rimac founded Greyp Bikes, a sister company of Rimac Automobili with the purpose of manufacturing high-performance electric bicycles with which he "intends to change the world".

Greyp currently sells a range of electric bicycles, and has won a Design Innovation Award for its technology. The bikes' Central Intelligence Module and eSim help to keep the bike online at all times, while a partner app allows for navigation, fitness tracking and data analysis. All e-bikes with Greyp technology can virtually communicate with each other, linking real-life cycling experiences with the virtual world.

The Greyp range currently includes the G6 & G5 mountain bikes, but will grow to include a range of eTrekking (eSUV) bikes in 2021, as well as eCity bikes in 2022.

Honours

References
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  2. "Meet the Croatian inventor behind the world's first electric supercar". CTV News. 6 March 2016. Retrieved 12 May 2018.
  3. Luke Waller (2 December 2015). "24 - Mate Rimac - Croatia - The Innovator". Politico. Vol. 28. Politico.eu.
  4. "Mate Rimac Named Croatian Entrepreneur of the Year". Croatia Week. 21 March 2018.
  5. "Glasnik SSN". www.samoborskiglasnik.net. Retrieved 2021-02-08.
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  10. "Rimac C_Two: 1888bhp hypercar on track for 2021 deliveries". Autocar. Retrieved 2021-02-14.
  11. Lauren Simmonds (17 March 2018). "Mate Rimac: I Want to Help Croatia Bring Other Car Manufacturers Here". Total Croatia News (HRT).
  12. "2020 MotorTrend Person of the Year: Who's the Biggest Player in the Auto Industry?". Nov 19, 2019.
  13. "Forbes puts Croatia's Mate Rimac on its 30 Under 30 list". SeeNews. 18 January 2017.
  14. Whipple, Tom. "Could Mate Rimac's electric supercars overtake Tesla?". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 2021-02-21.
  15. "Mate Rimac proglašen poduzetnikom godine! Podsjetimo se tko je impresivni tvorac prvog hrvatskog električnog automobila". Vijesti.hr. 20 March 2018.
  16. Taylor, Jeremy (2020-08-28). "Meet the electric supercar entrepreneur Mate Rimac, whose new vehicle aims to overtake Tesla". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 2021-02-21.
  17. "NSZSSH - Nezavisni sindikat zaposlenih u srednjim školama Hrvatske". www.nszssh.hr. Retrieved 2021-02-21.
  18. "From iGlove to the Fastest Electric Car in the World" (PDF). PM World Journal. III (XII – December 2014): 8. December 2014.
  19. "Jutarnji list - Mladi inovatori izumili zamjenu za tipkovnicu". 7 November 2006.
  20. "Mate Rimac: Concept One is Just Our Flagship Product, Technology is Our Forte". www.total-croatia-news.com. Retrieved 2021-02-21.
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  22. "Mate Rimac priznao da bi teško stvorio tvrtku da ga jedan profesor iz srednje nije gurao". Srednja.hr (in Croatian). 2017-10-30. Retrieved 2021-03-02.
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  25. Spinelli, Mike. "Mate Rimac Opens Up About the Trials of Starting His Own Electric Car Company". The Drive. Retrieved 2021-03-02.
  26. "Mate Rimac, 2018 Entrepreneur of the Year: "We Need to Work Together and Value Success"". Total Croatia News. 21 March 2018.
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  28. "VIDEO: VST Conversions blows us, competition away with BMW bi-moto EV Racer". Autoblog. Retrieved 2021-03-02.
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  32. "Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors Invest 80M EUR in Rimac and Establish a Technology Partnership". Rimac Automobili. Retrieved 2021-03-02.
  33. "BUGATTI Rimac: Bugatti and Rimac begin Cooperation in a N". www.bugatti.com. Retrieved 2021-11-08.
  34. "U prigodi Dana državnosti predsjednik Josipović dodijelio 11 odlikovanja, priznanje dobila i splitska udruga MoST". Slobodna Dalmacija. 25 June 2014.
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