Thread by @holliemaea

Here is the story of Rimac:

About 15 years ago, a Croatian dude appeared on a DIY electric car forum I frequented. Like most people who showed up there, he wanted to convert an EV but didn’t know how. He asked people what to do, and set about converting his blown out BMW.

1/2

As was common at the time, he used a souped up forklift motor, which is a series wound brushed DC motor. These motors were cheap, easy to control and could produce immense power for short periods of time, since they didn’t have magnets to demag and they worked fine saturated.

2/

He made a hot little donut machine/smoke generator and had a lot of fun with it. But he didn’t want to stop there. He asked the forumers where he could get high power AC motors “for an idea” he had. Those were hard to find back then. Siemens made some bulky induction motors.

3/

He was not satisfied with the power density of those, though. At the time, my company (I didn’t work there yet but was friends with the owner) was one of the only places selling high power density permanent magnet AC motors. They were made by a friend here in Portland.

4/

A forumer pointed him to our website. None of us knew it at the time, but he reached out to our motor guy who agreed to make a customer dual version of the motor. Then he disappeared for a couple of years. When he came back, he blew everyone’s mind.

5/

He had started a company, Rimac Automobili, hired a talented team, and built a prototype electric supercar, the Concept 1. There was nothing on Earth like it. A motor per wheel. A megawatt of power. A beautiful carbon body with luxury interior.

6/

Needless to say, the car didn’t just wow us on the forum. It got a ton of attention. I believe he made the Concept 1 with family money, but after that, the Croatian government invested. He stepped up his game again, refining the Concept 2 & bringing motor production in house.

8/

From there it’s just been a crazy trajectory. When Koenigsegg wanted to start dabbling in electric technology, they went to Rimac for high performance components. In 2018 Porsche bought 10% of the company. Then in 2021 they went all the way, putting Rimac in charge of Bugatti.
9/

Today, the Nevara, which is the refined/production version of the Concept 1 & 2, is objectively the highest end EV that money (a LOT of money) can buy. Boosted up to 1.4 MW, it does 0-60 in 1.85 seconds, with a top speed of 258 mph. Just an amazing trajectory for Mate Rimac.
/END

For those who want to read his original post, here it is:

diyelectriccar.com/threads/race-e…

There is also a cautionary tale in this story. When Mate Rimac was looking for motors for his Concept One project, he reached out to a motor company called UQM. They refused to sell him motors at any price because they considered him too small time.