Everyone in the industry knows about the Rimac Nevera; the electric hypercar that casually demolished 23 records in a single day last year, including a 0-100km/h (62 mph) run in 1.82 seconds. But guess what? There’s a second Rimac model in the pipeline and it’s set to be unveiled in a few months’ time—June 26, to be precise, as announced by the company’s founder and CEO, Mate Rimac, on social media today.
Now, we hate to break it to you, but it’s not exactly what you’d expect from the maker of the world’s fastest electric car. Instead, Rimac will be unveiling a robotaxi that it has been working on for the past five years, according to its founder.
Little is known about the vehicle, and Rimac’s teaser video unfortunately provides scarce details. However, it does hint that the robotaxi will sport a hatchback-like appearance with a notably elongated A-pillar, in contrast to the toaster-shaped autonomous pods proposed by companies like Zoox and Cruise.
Sources suggest that the automaker aims to have its autonomous vehicles on the road by 2026. Rimac has previously described the Robotaxi as a “revolutionary vehicle built on a completely new platform designed around safety and comfort.” The robotaxi’s infotainment features will be controllable through a smartphone app.
Read: Rimac To Reveal Robotoxi Service Within Months, Report Claims
Dubbed, Project 3 Mobility, the program has received input from Kia and Hyundai, which bought a $90 million stake in the automaker in 2019. Since then, Rimac has also received significant investments from Porsche, which now owns 24 percent of the Croatian startup, and has entrusted the running of Bugatti to Mate Rimac. Volkswagen, the parent company of Porsche, recently announced its plans to introduce Level 4 autonomous vehicles by 2026.
“People see us as the hypercar company [but] we have many other things cooking and have a longer-term outlook,” Rimac told Tech Crunch in a 2021 interview. “I think that the new mobility will be really a shift in society. Just like phones didn’t just change the phone industry. Apple didn’t just disrupt Nokia, but changed our lives. I think the next big change that we’ll have is mobility.”
Project 3 Mobility is thought to already have deals to run its robotaxis with five cities, and is in talks with another 35 globally.