Mate Rimac posted a video on Facebook in which he says that his Project 3 Mobility (P3M) has produced over 60 robotaxi prototypes.
“By December, we were supposed to show 60 robotaxi prototypes. And here they are. They are all here and a few more,” said Rimac.
He says that these are prototypes in various stages of development and for various purposes.
They are going through the testing phase
“For safety testing, crash tests, wind tunnels, comfort, vibrations, longevity, consumption and so on,” he added.
Rimac also says that he believes that robotaxi or autonomous driving is safer than a human driver, and that it is becoming safer and better, but that despite this, accidents cannot be ruled out.
“So these cars need to be tested for crash tests. Some have already passed them here. So we want that, if there is an accident, which we consider to be a very small probability, we want that no serious injury can happen with these cars, that we can be completely safe and relaxed in using them,” he said, Index reported.
How much money did they withdraw?
Rimac wanted to “clear up one more thing”, namely media reports that Rimac Automobili received 300, 500 or 900 million euros from taxpayers.
“To be very precise and clear. We withdrew 89.7 million euros from the European Union for robot taxis. Private investors have invested 104 million euros in robot taxis. They invested in the entire Rimac group with those 104 million, one billion euros of private investments. In total, we withdrew less than 10% of the total investment that entered the Rimac group from some kind of public funds,” he emphasized.
“For the deployment of robotaxis, not only in Zagreb, because that is only our first step. We want to do this in many other countries and cities in Europe and outside Europe, we will need hundreds of millions of euros, which we will also attract from private investors, as we have done for everything we have done so far, as well as for the development of Nevera and Bugatti and the construction of the Rimac campus, we financed everything with the funds of our private international investors. This is how we will continue with the Vern robotaxi,” added Rimac.
He says that in the future, all the funds that the company will need will be collected from private investors.
New technology in Croatia
“Although it may sound crazy that a story like this will be built in Croatia, where a Croatian company will fight in the global framework in new technology, which is the technology of the future. I think we have already proved a couple of times that something that may have sounded completely crazy when someone said 15 years ago that the most powerful, fastest electric cars in the world, the Rimac Nevera, would be developed and produced in Croatia.
As much as some disparage it, it is the case today. If someone had said 10 years ago that the new Bugatti would be developed and produced in Kerestinac, that too would have sounded crazy. Just as it sounds crazy that in Croatia we develop and produce batteries for the latest Porsches, BMWs and so on,” he said.
“Zagreb is the first step, and then from Zagreb to the whole world. And I hope that together we will all be a little more optimistic and trust each other a little more,” concluded Rimac.
