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Comment by jansan | Hacker News Reader

Not sure if enough people have Rimac on the radar. They are pushing hard. For example the new Bugatti cars will be made by a joint venture of Rimac and Bugatti (=Volkswagen), and they will be hybrid or all electric. They have their own hyper car (the Nevera which accelerates from 0 to 60mph in 1.74 seconds), do development work for other car companies (like Porsche) and now present this BESS. This is exciting stuff coming from Croatia.

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I'm not sure framing it as a joint venture is the right way to frame it, though they use the term to describe it that way. VAG put Mate in charge of a new division - Bugatti Rimac Automobiles. They are the parent company of Bugatti and Rimac. In it, Rimac holds 55%, VAG owns 45%. However, VAG also owns 22% of Rimac below, so VAG has technical controlling interest here. By any regards though, they basically did an Apple/NEXT type of takeover, where VAG bought much of Rimac but Mate took over Bugatti. Obviously, I think this all makes your point stronger.

They didn't buy Rimac, they bought a stake. It used to be 24%, not sure if it's bigger now https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a36920070/bugatti-rimac-po...

I updated the comment, It's really weird. They bought a part but also effectively gave Rimac the Bugatti company. One can argue that they basically leveraged Bugatti to acquire some control of Rimac and board seats without spending actual money.

They have a glorious flowchart on their site. https://web-cdn.rimac-automobili.com/wp-content/uploads/2021...

That IS a glorious chart, thank you; am I the only one who would REALLY want some arrows there? :)

It would be hilarious if it also had the fact that Porsche is owned by Volkswagen, and Volkswagen in turn... owns Porsche. https://www.bosshunting.com.au/motors/cars/volkswagen-group-...

That chart reminds me of Korean chaebols ownership structure right before the big crash of 1997

Asianometry How the Rich Ate South Korea https://youtu.be/hWCcvOE84Ao?t=489

Porsche has a 45% stake in Bugatti Rimac and a 22% stake in Rimac Group, which has a 55% stake in Bugatti Rimac. So it's complicated.

I like my conglomerates like my datastructures, directed and acyclic :p

Not that complicated. Porsche was once described as "the hedge fund that happens to also build cars".

Porsche did this stake here and there thing precisely to gain > 50% of Rimac voting rights.

It's simple really: Porsche controls Rimac.

Then there's the whole "VW took control of Porsche after the short squeeze made by Porsche to try to acquire VW failed" (it failed due to the sudden crash during the 2008 banking crisis IIRC). And now Porsche is apparently spinning out of VW and shall be independent again.

They only own 22% in Rimac, that's not a controlling stake. Therefore they don't have > 50% of Rimac (Rimac Bugatti I assume) voting rights.

I missed where VAG bought Rimac. Are you sure this is true? Here is an org chart for Rimac Bugatti, and AFAIK the ownership structure has not changed since:

https://www.rimac-automobili.com/media/press-releases/rimac-...

It's not Volkswagen AG who took control of Bugatti and Rimac, it's Porsche.

And Porsche is spinning out of VW and becoming independent again:

https://capital.com/porsche-volkswagen-vw-demerger-spin-off

https://www.autoweek.com/news/green-cars/a36933399/did-porsc...

(answer is "yes" btw)

Huh, why would VAG just give up on Porsche like that? Especially that Porsche holdings owns a big part of VAG itself.

Because the people controlling VW are the same that arw behind Porsche, namely the families Porsche and Piech.

Ah but Porsche is not Porsche but instead Porsche AG and Porsche SE.

It is pure insanity in need of many flow charts.

Independent, except VW AG still holds a majority of the ordinary voting shares and the rest of the Porsche AG voting shares are held by the family holding company that also holds the controlling shares of VW AG. At the moment, the same person is also CEO of both companies.

So what happens if you have 22% of a company that owns 55% of a joint venture? I don't _think _ you actually get to take a decision on 22% of the 55%, do you? The 22% company's board would probably get together, decide on a single vote for the 55% percentage and your ownership would not be useful in decision making?

For now Rimac has been most successful in finding investors. His game is similar to Musk in that he's very capable of swimming in the big money ocean, but the results are slim. This year they received 180 million from the state to develop autonomous taxis. It's not just state money, he's received private investment too, but it's all a bit fishy. Big claims and announcements, but a very slow rollout.

They have been building and selling automotive electric systems for posche/audi/ferrari and others for years, and have released their own super car. What are you talking about?

They've built a handful of ultra-expensive boutique automobiles. This is not nothing, but it's operating on a different scale than a company like Porsche. They have achieved world beating performance...on vehicles that are basically lab specimens that will hardly ever be driven.

Yeah, the guy said back in 2021 that they'll make lvl 5 (LOL) autonomous robo taxis by the end of 2023.

And the government bought the techbro investor-speak and gave an already shady company 180m € of taxpayers money.

https://www-telegram-hr.translate.goog/vijesti/telegram-dozn...

They're the Croatian equivalent of German "hidden champions" - insanely good technology, possibly world-leading positions in their niche, but very unknown outside of said niche.

Rimac cars aren't something your average neighbor will ever drive, probably not even your average non-F500 CEO. But, similar to F1 racing cars and early-days Tesla, they push right at the edges of technology, which will eventually trickle down to ordinary cars.

In Croatia they are also known of being shady company with shady government deals, shady beginnings (money laundering) and burning money on projects that aren't feasible at all. But they look good on paper and government lovea to use them as a PR and "successful Croatian project"

Thanks. The amazing campus was a bit too beautiful to be true for a growing car company.

This is fascinating to me.

What fraction of companies in Croatia are "money laundering"? Because if the fact is that most companies start out this way, and we end up with Rimac due to a magical grouping of people, then their success is hardly ignoble at all; it should be celebrated, supported, and leveraged into a moderate size organization. In that sense, they were successful despite their beginnings, which would normally be structured to not foster innovation. So they should be celebrated by Croatia and by Croatians since it is an example of what companies can be, and not so much an example of how companies can start since we already know the probability of success with that method is very low.

> Not sure if enough people have Rimac on the radar.

I've been aware of them for a while but they are largely irrelevant for most people. The technology is interesting and styling is cool but they were something like 1.9m euro.

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