BMW announces partnership with Rimac Technology

Aside from the rise of Tesla, no firm has achieved a steeper ascent from zero to hero than Rimac. And in many ways, its journey is much more impressive. Elon Musk was already well-known (and very deep-pocketed) when he helped turn Tesla from a Californian startup into a globe-spanning behemoth. Mate Rimac famously started in his garage. For the first two years, Rimac Automobili had no employees. Now it has 1,500 in Zagreb and Rimac is also the CEO of Bugatti. And he’s still only 36. 

Famously, the car he started with was an old E30 3 Series, so we can only assume that he’s delighted with his firm’s latest long-term partnership. BMW says the aim of the collaboration ‘is to co-develop and co-produce innovative solutions in the field of high-voltage battery technology for battery-electric vehicles’ – but, like umpteen OEMs before it, the firm is buying into Rimac’s special sauce as a Tier 1 supplier ‘specialising in electrification’. 

Naturally, it is referring to Rimac Technology, the wholly-owned sister company to Rimac Automobili and the tip of its money-earning spear. BMW credits its new long-term partnership as ‘a sign of the Rimac Technology transition from niche high-performance solutions supplier to high-volume Tier 1 supplier’ but truthfully the firm is already a long way down this road, and brings a comprehensive range of high-voltage battery packs, e-axles and software solutions to the table – all designed and engineered in-house and available with ‘a high degree of customisation’. 

BMW doesn’t go into detail about how it intends to use all this expertise (the ‘scope and content’ of the deal is deferred for a later date) but does make it clear that the results of its collaboration will be used ‘in model generations slated for the second half of the 2020s’. So you’d imagine it is already well aware how some of Rimac’s existing solutions will slot into future product as BMW gears up for a world where EVs account for over half of its global sales. The manufacturer has already promised significant advances from the sixth generation of eDrive that debuts in the first of the Neue Klasse lineup next year; beyond that, it will seek Rimac’s help to go one better.