Rimac is shifting from electric supercars to robotaxis

A new robotaxi service is coming to Croatia, courtesy of the country’s leading supercar company, Rimac. The service will be called Verne, named for French novelist and poet Jules Verne, and will launch in Zagreb in 2026, the company said.

It’s an interesting pivot for a company that has been on a rocket-ship trajectory over the last few years. Founded by Mate Rimac in a garage as a one-man operation, Rimac has since become a highly desirable brand, with many legacy automakers calling upon the startup to help them build their own electric supercars. In addition to making the record-breaking Nevera hypercar, Rimac also took control of Bugatti from Volkswagen in 2021 in a surprise move that created a new company called Bugatti Rimac.

And now the company of the 256mph electric hypercar is getting ready to launch its own robotaxi. I assure you, this is less random than it seems on the surface. Rimac has been working on autonomous technology since 2017, and in 2021, the company received €200 million from the EU to develop robotaxis as part of a €6.3 billion recovery plan for Croatia. (The incentive package opened the company up to a lot of criticism, including one member of the Croatian parliament calling Mate Rimac a fraud and “the Balkan Elizabeth Holmes.” ) The company has also received funding from Hyundai and Kia.

Today, Rimac is out to prove that the money isn’t going to waste. Previously dubbed Project 3 Mobility, the newly renamed Verne will be led by Rimac’s friend Marko Pejković as CEO and Adriano Mudri, the designer of Nevera, as chief designer. The company said it chose to honor the author of such classics as Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Journey to the Center of the Earth because “he used the theme of travel as the driving force in his storytelling.”

The robotaxi will be fully electric and rely on autonomous technology from Mobileye, the Intel-owned company that supplies autonomous and advanced driver-assist technology to many automakers. Verne will use Mobileye Drive, a self-driving system that utilizes the Israeli companies’ EyeQ system-on-a-chip, as well as a data crowdsourcing program called the Road Experience Management, or REM, which uses real-time data from Mobileye-equipped vehicles to build out a global 3D map. 

The vehicle is Level 4 fully autonomous, meaning it lacks traditional controls like a steering wheel and pedals. Gone also are other familiar touchstones, like windshield wipers and side-view mirrors, in the interest of reducing drag and enhancing the aerodynamic experience.

Verne’s first vehicle looks radically different from most self-driving cars on the road today. Rather than opt for a retrofitted minivan or a toaster-shaped shuttle with protruding sensors, the Verne robotaxi is sleeker and much smaller with the overall appearance of a two-door hatchback. The expansive greenhouse and sloping windshield enclose an interior that is more luxurious than your average robotaxi. And the vehicle’s two sliding doors are certainly eye-catching, with Rimac saying they were designed for ease of entry.

The decision to go with a two-seater may strike some as curious, considering many robotaxi operators use more high-capacity vehicles. After all, more seats equals more fares, which means more revenue. But Verne’s chief designer Mudri cites data that shows “9 out of 10 rides are used by 1 or 2 people. Therefore, we can satisfy most of all trips with a two-seater and create unmatched interior space in a compact-sized vehicle.”

Reducing the number of seats will make for a more spacious, luxurious ride, Verne says. But the company’s robotaxis won’t just be accessible to the superrich; in a statement, Mate Rimac promised that Verne’s autonomous ridehailing service will be “affordable for all.”

Without a steering wheel or other clunky controls, Rimac was free to go big on its interior screen. The 43-inch display nearly spans the width of the dashboard and includes widgets for media, cabin controls, and weather. The central widget is devoted to the navigation, with a design that appears similar to Tesla or Waymo, with an illuminated line stretching out from the virtual vehicle to help the rider keep track of the trip.

Verne says riders will be able to listen to their own music or watch movies on the widescreen display. Seventeen speakers are located throughout the vehicle, which includes a Dolby Atmos sound system.

The robotaxi can be summoned via a mobile app, much like Uber or Waymo. Through the app, customers can customize certain settings, like temperature, lighting, and even scent, before their vehicle even shows up. On the backend, all the vehicles are connected, enabling Verne to optimize fleet management tasks.

Verne says it will build centrally located vehicle depots called “Motherships” in the cities in which it operates. These will be hubs for the robotaxis to be cleaned, charged, and maintained. The vehicles themselves will be produced at a factory in Croatia that has yet to be built.

After Zagreb, Verne says it will roll out its robotaxi service in other European cities — first in the UK and Germany, and then later in the Middle East. While some companies have been testing autonomous vehicles in Europe, any commercial service appears to be a long way off. Meanwhile, Alphabet’s Waymo is operating in several major cities in the US, and Baidu is similarly running hundreds of driverless cars in China.

Verne is working to become the first major robotaxi operator outside those two countries. The company has already signed agreements with 11 cities in the EU, UK, and the Middle East and is negotiating with more than 30 cities worldwide, it says. And it aims to “complement public transport, not compete against it.”

“In the longer term, Verne should help remove the need for a second or third car in the household that takes up parking spaces, is used rarely, and is a significant expense,” the company says.