Mate Rimac first built his reputation by creating wild battery-electric hypercars under his own name, before going on to become chief executive of Bugatti as well as his own company. Yet the man who helped establish the idea of cutting-edge high-performance EVs now says the future of supercars and hypercars will remain centred on internal-combustion engines, according to a recent interview with CNBC.
“For normal cars, normal people, the vast majority [of future cars] will be electric,” Rimac told CNBC, adding that “the upper segment, like sports cars and upwards, are going to stay combustion for a very long time, exactly like watches. Only like five percent of watches are made in Switzerland, but that’s where ninety percent of profits are made. An Apple Watch or any kind of smartwatch can do so many more things. But no one will pay $200,000 for it.”
Electric vehicles have undoubtedly become more affordable in recent years, and that has helped drive a sharp rise in their popularity, especially in Europe and East Asia. But those compact commuter models are a world away from the Nevera and its carbon fibre monocoque structure, and Rimac is fully aware of the irony.
Given that his background is rooted in proving that EVs can match or outperform the fastest supercars in the world, it is quite a twist that he is now leading a high-end carmaker famous for enormous cylinder counts. “It’s kind of ironic that I’m now making the world’s biggest combustion engine,” Rimac said about his position at Bugatti, which is building an 8.3-litre V-16 for the Tourbillon. “You have the crazy situation now at our facility in Croatia. On the same production line, you have the world’s most powerful electric car being built right next to the world’s biggest combustion engine. Life is strange sometimes.”
Rimac’s argument about analogue experiences and luxury markets is already being borne out in real time. Luxury carmakers from Porsche to Ferrari are bringing back or recreating old-school driving elements such as manual transmissions, and many performance-oriented manufacturers are stepping back from electric vehicles and instead turning their attention to reviving V-8s and other combustion engines. Straight-line performance alone is no longer what defines an exciting car—particularly when even fairly ordinary EVs can deliver that kind of acceleration, as Rimac explained.
“You can get a car that’s faster than any performance car from 10 years ago for like $50,000 from China,” Rimac said to CNBC. “Performance is really becoming secondary. It’s more about what I call the celebration of human skills. When you look at these cars, you see the amount of ingenuity and art and beauty. The car is, like, the most complex object you can buy. It’s art, but it’s art that needs to go 250 miles per hour and be safe, have downforce and survive in a crash test and go in the snow and extreme heat, and all those things.”
That philosophy was clearly visible at this year’s Monterey Car Week. Models such as the Bugatti Destrier, Gordon Murray Special Vehicles S1, and Brabus Bodo Cabriolet came across as being as much works of art as functioning road cars, and both place emphasis on more than just outright horsepower. In the same way, both Koenigsegg and McLaren revealed new versions of analogue human gear-shifting on all-new models during Monterey Car Week. At the highest levels of the automotive world, novelty and a more hands-on driving experience have become the preferred modern currencies.
