"The future of automotive is not going to be boring," Rimac told ABC News.Matt Rimac, the 36-year-old CEO of Bugatti Rimac, speaking at The Quail motoring event in Carmel, Calif., on Aug. 16, 2024.Mate Rimac has a tall order: trying to convince drivers that electric supercars are superior to combustion vehicles.
Mate: I started the company 15 years ago when I was like 20 years old in order to push the limits and show what technology can bring to the table ... that the future of automotive is not going to be boring. And the whole goal, my whole focus of the company and of me the last few years, has been to achieve that. It's not just the car. It's building the capabilities, the company around it, to actually do it in Croatia, a country that has never built cars before.
Mate: I think electric cars, in any category, need to bring something special. Just making an car electric is not going to cut it. People are thinking, "Let's just make an electric car and it will sell ... or the regulation will force people to go electric." And I am not totally against that -- I am totally against forcing this on people who don't want an electric car.
Mate: It could be anything. From the beginning, I never said that we are exclusively electric. We were whatever is most exciting. The Nevera R has four electric motors -- that is not something you can achieve with a combustion engine. But when it comes to power source, it can be anything. It could be a combustion engine with an interesting fuel, it could be fuel cell that does not run on hydrogen. We are really looking at lots of stuff.