Tuesday 14th May 2019

Hyundai plots performance EVs with Rimac

Korean-Croatian collaboration will yield two new models, starting from next year

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Nothing validates the credentials of an automotive start-up company better than investment from a large OEM. See Ford's recent move to plough hundreds of millions of dollars into Rivian as the perfect example. Today that continues, with Hyundai and Kia having jointly invested €80m (€64m Hyundai, €16m Kia) into Croatian company, Rimac. This after Porsche purchased a 10 per cent stake in the company last year, too.

The plan is a "strategic partnership to collaborate on the development of high-performance electric vehicles", Hyundai aiming to "speed up its transition towards clean mobility and position itself as a global leader in driving this change in the industry." The first project will be an electric version of Hyundai's mid-engined N sports car - a project that extends back to 2015, with the RM15 - followed by a high performance fuel cell EV. And who better to collaborate with on those projects than a firm which has a proven history of producing electrically-powered sports cars with more than 1,000hp?

Mate Rimac said of the partnership: "We see a strong investor and technology partner in Hyundai Motor Group and believe that this collaboration will charge the company's position as a Tier-1 electrification components supplier to the industry."

The official line from the release is that the two "will form a technical partnership to collaborate on two high-performance electric vehicles by 2020", so clearly there's a desire to introduce zero emission options swiftly. Given Rimac's remarkable journey in a few short years, there's no reason to doubt the accelerated timeframe. More to follow soon, no doubt.

 

[mrclav]

Very interesting. Hyundai really have an opportunity here to take it to the establishment as the paradigm for cars shifts from ICE to electric and Rimac are definitely 'bleeding edge' when it comes to pushing the performance envelope. I shall be watching this with interest...

[f1nlay]

mrclav said:

..as the paradigm for cars shifts from ICE to electric...

Took me a minute to realise ICE was not In Car Entertainment but Internal Combustion Engine

Interesting that there is space in the market for a specialist to partner with the likes of Hyundai/Porsche. I'm more interested in how this pans as two very different companies compared to BMW/Toyota's collaboration on the new Supra

[simonrockman]

Pistonheads said:

Nothing validates the credentials of an automotive start-up company better than investment from a large OEM.

But it doesn't guarantee that the OEM will do anything with it. cf. Bladon Jets

[VanquishRider]

Exactly, disappeared of the face of the earth. I wonder if it will ever amount to anything?

I guess things moved on in the battery wold too quickly. Energy density is moving on at a hell of pace.