At the recent Financial Times, Future of The Car Conference, Mate Rimac, CEO of Rimac, said of the 150 Nevera’s scheduled for build, only 50 have found homes.
Wow!
He explained that when Rimac started to develop Nevera in late 2016, ‘Electric was Cool.’
However, now the world’s wealthy want analogue combustion-powered super and hypercars.
Bugatti Rimac, a joint venture between the Rimac Group and Porsche AG, owns Bugatti Automobiles.
Mate has said that Bugatti will continue as an ICE marque.
Which kind of explains why the successor to the Bugatti Chiron will have a new V16 power plant.
It has become clear that performance isn’t the prime buying motive for the elite hypercar buyer.
Most motorists don’t have the choice, but the hypercar owner does.
Rimac referred to the Apple watch as an example.
‘An Apple Watch can do everything better. It can do 1,000 more things, is much more precise, and can measure your heart rate. But nobody would pay $200,000 for an Apple Watch.’
Mr Rimac also suggested that the mushrooming of mass-market EVs and governments and regulators’ attempts to push clean cars onto the public have reduced EVs’ exclusivity.
Although Mate Rimac is unlikely to ditch the ‘Electric Dream’ anytime soon, I understand he is currently assessing nanotube-powered engines. Whatever next?