The Rimac Group is an automaker and automotive technology company based in Zagreb, Croatia, which is known for its 800-volt electric vehicle architecture that enables EVs to run more efficiently and charge very quickly. After entering important partnerships with Porsche and Hyundai, Rimac has just announced another venture with a big-name car brand, BMW. It also owns Bugatti now.
According to the official announcement, this is a long-term strategic commitment between BMW and Rimac Technology (the engineering arm of the company that supplies powertrains for third-party EVs) to “create innovative solutions for the high-voltage batteries in future selected vehicle projects.”
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Rimac is known for its 800-volt architecture and the mighty Nevera
Rimac not only supplied the 800-volt technology used in Porsche and Hyundai-Kia EVs, but it also created the world's first electric hypercar, the monstrous Nevera with over 1,900 horsepower.
This sounds like BMW will not be directly supplied by Rimac, but it will use the latter’s know-how to develop its own next-gen EV batteries. Even though we know the upcoming range of Neue Klasse models will feature an 800-volt architecture, we doubt these new batteries developed with Rimac’s help will be what powers the new line of BMW EVs, the first of which should debut before the end of 2024.
At the end of its press release announcing the partnership, BMW makes it clear that its sixth-generation eDrive technology (that will power Neue Klasse models) was developed separately and without input from Rimac. However, that’s not to say Neue Klasse models can’t receive improved batteries co-engineered with Rimac as part of an update after they are launched.
BMW says it will “release more details about what form the strategic tie-up will take, as well as its scope and content, at a later stage.” The exact same phrase is used in the press release published by Rimac, which doesn’t reveal any additional information.
The founder and CEO of Rimac, Mate Rimac, notes that this important partnership with BMW is “a clear sign of the transition of Rimac Technology from niche high-performance supplier to high-volume production capability. With the relentless growth of our business, including the opening of Rimac Campus, we’re now ready to deliver large-scale projects for the leading brands in the automotive industry.”
But even if details are currently very limited, this collaboration is intriguing. Let’s not forget that Rimac makes the world’s quickest-accelerating road-legal car, the bonkers-quick Nevera, a vehicle that is quite similar in philosophy to what BMW would make were it to launch an electric hypercar. Rimac says this is “the largest and most ambitious project the company has undertaken to date,” and it’s already involved in some pretty big projects, so the BMW-Rimac partnership is definitely very exciting news.
