Rimac, an electric supercar company, is set to take over Bugatti, the Volkswagen Group brand best known for producing the Bugatti Veyron and Chiron, both of which are said to be capable of exceeding 260mph.
This deal removes the strategic direction of Bugatti, which has long been a loss-making business despite its exorbitant cost. Bugatti has felt increasingly out of place in a VW Group that produces 9-10 million cars each year across a range of brands.
It delivered 77 cars in 2020, down 5 from the 82 it delivered in 2019, a figure so modest that it should not appear at all in this chart of VW Group deliveries.
The new business will be called Bugatti Rimac, and it will combine a classic and well-established hypercar brand with the polar opposite - a scrappy electric vehicle start-up created by an ambitious Croatian named Mate Rimac, who first achieved fame for his custom-built electric BMW.
This purchase is a clear way for VW Group, which has lofty aspirations for mass-market electric vehicles, to transmit operational management of a renowned brand to a start-up that is embracing the challenge of developing the next generation of electric supercars. Rimac's pole position in the narrow realm of electric hypercars is cemented.
Source: VW Group Annual Report, chartr,