Rimac targets Zagreb as world’s first city to use his new Robotaxi service

Mate Rimac (Photo: Rimac Automobili)

ZAGREB, 9 July 2021 – Rimac Automobili CEO Mate Rimac has presented his new project developing autonomous vehicles and  is targeting the Croatian capital Zagreb as the first city to use Robotaxi service. 

Rimac, who was visited yesterday by the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen at their headquarters in Sveta Nedelja, presented the project from sister company Project 3 Mobility.

The project for the development of vehicles and infrastructure for new mobility has been recognized as one of the national strategic projects in the transportation sector, which represents a great potential for the society and economy of Croatia in the coming period, as well as globally and has been selected among the projects to be presented to the Commission.

KIA Motors, a company that is a part of the Hyundai Motor Group, is already directly involved in the project, as an investor and shareholder of the company. 

The total amount of funds that will be invested in the first, before the commercial phase of the project is 450M EUR, coming from foreign investors, such as KIA Motors, and others with whom negotiations are already in an advanced stage. We expect that much larger investments will be needed after the initial pre-commercial phase, which will also be collected from international investors. According to the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, 200M EUR will be co-financed in the pre-commercial phase from EU Funds.

Mate Rimac showing President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen around Rimac Automobili on Thursday (Photo: Rimac Automobili)

The project is actively in development for the past several years, its commercial phase, after intensive research and development is expected from the end of 2024. 

“We were pleased to host the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the Prime Minister of the Republic of Croatia, Andrej Plenković at Rimac Automobili and to present the project of our sister company P3 Mobility. On this occasion, we presented a new mobility project that we have been working on for several years. We are glad that it was recognized as a strategic project proposed to the placement of funds of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. The future of mobility will change completely. The commercial phase of our project, after intensive research and development, is expected from the end of 2024. The first vehicle demonstrator was made last year and we’re working on various elements of overall services (mobility platform, vehicle, infrastructure). We have entered into a key partnership with a company such as KIA (also an investor in the project), Microsoft, autonomous software provider and many others. We are currently in negotiations with about 20 cities in Europe and the Middle East, which would be the first cities to be provided with a robotics service. We have already signed cooperation agreements with several cities, but our wish is for Zagreb to be the first city in the world where the service will be provided in 2024. The goal is to produce the vehicles and a large number of components in Croatia and export tens of thousands of units per year to locations where the Robotaxi service will be provided,” Mate Rimac, CEO of Rimac Automobiles and P3 Mobility said. 

(Photo: Rimac Automobili)

Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission said: 

“Being here being with you, Mate, and having seen the presentation I must say I am deeply impressed. I have seen the future present here in Croatia. I have seen the future of mobility here present in Croatia that is the answer to climate change. It is protecting the environment; it is the answer to the needs of digitalization because it works with smart connectivity. It works with artificial intelligence in a way that serves people and indeed I have seen a concept that gives back to people time, safety, affordability.  So that was fascinating, I am very glad that Europe is investing in this entrepreneurship. This capability of innovation I have seen here today in Croatia and gives me a lot of confidence that next-generation EU is the one who will make sure that the European Union is setting standards for the world for example environmentally-friendly mobility. Mate thank you very much, this was outstanding and I’ll go home with a lot of good impressions and I’m looking forward to implementing what we have started today.”

Earlier this week, Rimac achieved another huge milestone, combining forces with Bugatti for create Bugatti Rimac.