Rimac takes over Bugatti

[Paul_F]

At least, that's the headline. In reality it's a little less clear - Porsche have effectively swapped 40% of Bugatti for 60% of Rimac Automobili and 24% of Rimac Technology. It's pretty clear that in future Bugatti is going to be an electric-only brand though.

[AE-NMidlands]

I can't get interested in automotive industry politics, it's just hype and trying to postpone the inevitable (collapse of the sector) as far as I am concerned. Electric cars aren't a solution to our current problems. Public transport - combined with lots more walking and cycling - will address obesity, excessive energy use and pollution all at the same time.

[Galahad]

(Translated from Croatian)

On Monday, Rimac Automobili announced that they have joined forces with the well-known automobile brand Bugatti Automobiles and created a new automobile and technology company - Bugatti Rimac, which will start operating in the fourth quarter of this year.

At the same time, Rimac Automobili will become the Rimac Group, which will be the majority owner of the new company with a 55 percent stake, while Mate Rimac will be the CEO of that new company.

Porsche will retain its existing 24 percent stake in the Rimac Group and acquire a 45 percent stake in the new company Bugatti Rimac.

The Rimac group, on the other hand, will split into two separate businesses - the new hypercar business and Rimac Technology, which will develop, manufacture and supply battery systems, drives and other EV components. Rimac Technology will be an independent company that cooperates with many global car manufacturers, according to Rimac.

In the Rimac Group, founder Mate Rimac will retain the original 37 percent stake, and with Porsche's 24 percent, the Hyundai Motor Group will have a 12 percent stake and other investors a 27 percent stake.

Mate Rimac, as CEO of the Rimac Group, will lead Bugatti Rimac and the new company Rimac Technology.

Bugatti and Rimac will continue to operate as separate brands, retaining existing production facilities and distribution channels. Rimac will thus keep its business premises on the outskirts of Zagreb, and the production of Bugatti will continue in Molsheim, France.

The Bugatti Rimac company will develop the future vehicles of Bugatti and Rimac, combining resources and expertise in research and development, production and other areas. Over time, Bugatti Rimac’s global headquarters will be located in the recently announced construction of the Rimac campus, which will also serve as the headquarters of Rimac Technology.

The 100 million-euro, 100,000-square-meter campus, scheduled to open in 2023, will be the basis for all research and development of future Rimac and Bugatti hypercars.

"This is a truly exciting moment in the short but fast-growing history of Rimac Automobil. We’ve been through so much in such a short time, but this new venture takes things to a whole new level. Rimac and Bugatti match perfectly. As a young, agile and fast-growing automotive technology company, we have become a pioneer in the electrical technology industry. With Nevera, we have also proven that we can develop and produce outstanding hypercars, which are not only fast, but also exciting and high quality. Bugatti, with more than a century of experience in engineering excellence, also has one of the most prominent legacies among automotive companies in history.” said Mate Rimac, who founded Rimac Automobile just 10 years ago.

According to Porsche CEO Olivear Blume, this deal combines Bugatti’s strong expertise in the hypercar business with Rimac’s tremendous innovative power in a very promising field of electromobility.

Source: https://kamenjar.com/mate-rimac-preuzeo ... hrvatskoj/

[Mr Gus]

I can't get interested in automotive industry politics, it's just hype and trying to postpone the inevitable (collapse of the sector) as far as I am concerned. Electric cars aren't a solution to our current problems. Public transport - combined with lots more walking and cycling - will address obesity, excessive energy use and pollution all at the same time.

Nope but it will help, lots.

Except with the obesity, & public transport isn't everywhere & never will be, thus privately owned vehicles.
Public transport is only in "profitable" routes (inc subsidy) & due to be slashed further as the easy target it always has been

Public transport is often more expensive than taking your own vehicle, that conundrum won't change either
For the countryside there is no easy solution, so I really wish folk would come up with one (nothing yet, or for the past 30 years as I've tried) would
especially hate to be a woman with all the pi** sodden corners of a dark cold, windy bus station, waiting several hours for a bus that "might" come, not an economical use of free time out of work, cold driving you to drink (get out of the weather extremes , or sheer boredom)

I look forward to some of the current luxury ICE brands imploding.

ON TOPIC though,.. I wonder how soon Bugatti will have to adopt the varied regular market it has sneered at for so long? ..give it 5 years to adapt or die as a mothballed brand name for sale.

[Oliver90owner]

I can't get interested in automotive industry politics, it's just hype and trying to postpone the inevitable (collapse of the sector) as far as I am concerned. Electric cars aren't a solution to our current problems. Public transport - combined with lots more walking and cycling - will address obesity, excessive energy use and pollution all at the same time.

While I agree there is too much reliance on cars for transport, post like yours remind me of being a juror for just one day.

They wanted to pay me peanuts for attending, but I claimed the maximum fuel allowance. They argued that I should have used public transport, but when I counter-argued that it saved me nights in hotels or only 4 hours (max) at home before setting out for service the next day, they paid up. My jury service time was very much reduced by that, I felt.

This was for a ~35 mile journey from Stamford to Northampton. Would you fancy the 70 mile bike ride each day, living in a hotel (perhaps for weeks) or living on service buses for umpteen hours each day? I didn’t.

[AE-NMidlands]

I am not claiming that buses as currently available in the UK will do the job, just that if we are really going to address the climate crisis then there has to be a step-change reduction in our power consumption, and transport will be a big part of it. It's not something that any politician dares try to sell, but Greta Thunberg shows them up every time she speaks. I'm with her.

It's very concerning that one of the outcomes of the current Local Authority financial problems is likely to be further reductions in our already-inadequate rural bus services. So much for "building back better!" We need a far better public transport network, planned (there's a dirty word now!) to addrress the current needs and making the most energy-efficient options the easy ones to take.

It is incredible that it is quite impractical to get from home to attend a court other than by driving, Lots of people don't have that luxury. It reminds me of what I have read of pre-Victorian England, when people went by horseback or carrier's cart and stayed in hotels en route or at their destinations for many reasons - and the poor could never dream of seeing anything outside their own parish boundary.

20 years ago - or more - we had a family cycle touring holiday in the Netherlands. I was impressed by the combined cycle storage and waiting shelters at bus stops - in the middle of no-where with no buildings in sight. I know we have more hills than they do, but (especially with electric-assist bikes) there is no excuse for constantly investing in car infrastructure and ignoring active transport, as our govt. is currently doing.

It's no good saying "I live in the country and public transport would never be an option for me." You will have to adjust (lower) your expectations of mobility. We all shall. It's why I live in a town on principle and never planned to move to somewhere "rural" when I retired. An ageing friend of mine is now bitterly regretting doing just that.

I remember a couple of journeys as a child with my grandma and our luggage from her house in Torquay to my aunt's farm in the South Hams, one probably on 3 trains to Kingsbridge (and I don't know how we got to the farm,) another maybe by train direct to Kingswear for Dartmouth, then the bus to a rural cross-roads where the local taxi driver had been booked to meet us to take us the last couple of miles to the farm. Don't tell me that rural travel by public transport is not possible. Maybe it's not as "easy" today, but it ought to be.

The other thing is that some organisation, maybe Sustrans, used to point out that by train and a bike ride of less-than-so-many-minutes you could get to almost anywhere in the UK.

A

[Mr Gus]

In the glory days of yesteryear there were local railways, freight was moved so passenger carriage was often viable as an add on.

Beeching made a good job of that as did others who were motivated to follow.

We have to take our daughter to school 8 miles each way (fast crash strewn roads so no moped option etc or safer back road times with added mileage to justify it.
She gets the bus back as often as possible which is in excess of £5 per day, & often requires 2 different bus companies & non interchangeable tickets.
The buses are not an option nor affordable if you wish to have down time (public transport can be rough, uncomfortable & intermittent with lies from the last bus (in my experience) that I used to have to use after finishing work at 7.30pm (started at 8.am) which meant waiting in hope for the last bus of the night after 10pm, see previous description of how it was further back in the thread.

Years later the bus station is still the same, a liability from a long forgotten era.
I used to commute to London (when I moved home) by bus until they scrapped that one too.
So had to get back on the trains which were sporadic in the evenings & cancelled at a moments notice meaning I often didn't get within 7 miles of home until after 10pm having got up at 5 am.

We don't & won't have decent public transport in the countryside unless its a vanity project like the St-ives (end of the line with prefab toilets & no ticket machines) to cambridge & beyond, built at great expense over old train tracks.

Now the grand idea is for a very short underground tube way running in cambridge & more "busway" ..cost is prohibitive, & only focussed on the city, with the same "never never" improvements elsewhere only touted to keep the gullible happy.

Successive government spends the money on city links, yet ignores the massive growth often forced upon it by kicking people out of london & dumping them in the countryside, adding significantly to the problems, cycleways are pretty non existant outside of cambridge, except for the route that follows the busway, with bikes not allowed on the busway buses.

This leaves you with scant options to cover miles without a car & is not going to change because it is not in the area of investment to "pleasure" london (where all costly improvements are quoted as scraping potential times off the current one to the capital)

In Wester ross We used to have "the post bus" (often a seat in a van) but that got cut out as non essential too, yet was a good way of getting to Inverness or places inbetween, back in the 80's.

& yeah, E-scooter legislation would help with micro mobility & the option to travel via a bus ' train & make up for lost time at the other end as you trudge several miles into the city with minutes to spare, or because they relocated your hospital & you cannot afford the parking dues as staff with zero guarantee of a parking space at the end of a 30 mile commute that was 16 before, govt move infrastructure OUT of the countryside for so called improvements.

I've been saddled with alternate transport most of my life, it has not got any easier I promise you, with the exception of some stops now having electronic signage that stalls in the heat, & no bus timetables.
Buses typically stink of diesel & therefore you stink of it, you cannot relax on a bus at the end of the day going home, they are uninviting & sporadic not efficient & every few minutes (i'd love a sunday london transport service compared to what we have).

Also, when on a train back from London run in conjunction with National express (as was) unannounced night works demanding a slew of buses from stevenage stopping every station to peterborough, no organisation to compartment travellers & go straight there with a mere 2 or 3 stops saving time, ..so you get back from london after 3 in the morning.

Welcome to the countryside commute & how it has been for the best part of 40 years.

[spread-tee]

Absolutely, we have been trying to run the country on the cheap for more than 30 years in the mistaken belief that it saves money, it's not surprising we have pitiful services and infrastructure. This Govt doesn't care because their mates in the "chumocracy" have done very well, they always do

Desp

[Mr Gus]

Also:

If you (we) want better uptake of micro mobility such as cycling then the aggression of the vehicle drivers oft "lord & ruler of the road" needs addressing ..police are lazy on this, public are ignorant as to the rules of the road they have been deemed fit to pass with knowledge of.

I am happy to say I've got a girl fired from her job for such an attitude she filmed from behind the wheel of her car threatening cyclists.
(it did help that she worked for a law firm admittedly & that I approached the company with a heads up before the media storm hit hard)
Part of the driving test needs to be a 1/2 day module on a push bike, scooter, etc in rush hour to get a feel for the aggression & dicey nature / vulnerability of being non car users, then swap over onto e-bikes & e-scooters & traverse the same areas.

But we have left the original topic so I'll put this opinion to bed

[Stinsy]

I'm a cyclist. And I despair at the conduct of many cyclists I encounter. A few examples:
- Riding with flashing lights. It is exceptionally difficult to gauge position, speed, and direction of an object with a flashing light.
- Lights that are too bright, or angled towards a driver's eyes. How can a driver keep a cyclist alive if their vision is impeded?
- Utter disregard for what a driver can and cannot see. I frequently tell other cyclists at traffic lights that the lorry driver cannot see them unless they can see the driver in his mirror, and that they can fix this by repositioning themself a metre or two. i usually get a disinterested shrug.
- Cutting corners on blind bends. This isn't a race on closed roads. An oncoming vehicle would have zero meters to take evasive action. You'd be dead, the vehicle would have dent.

This isn't to say that I don't see inconsiderate drivers of cars / commercial vehicles. Bit on the whole the standard of driving is "adequate" and reasonably predictable even when it falls short of ideal. Many cyclists on the other hand ride as if they have never taken a written or practical test to be on the road.