Porsche and Rimac are strengthening their ties, as Porsche ups its stake in the Croatian electric supercar company to 15.5%. That's up from the 10% stake Porsche snagged over a year ago. The larger stake in the company points to Porsche's confidence in what Rimac is doing, and its desire to be partners going forward. Timing for this announcement couldn't be a happy coincidence, as Porsche just revealed its first fully electric car earlier this week.
That car is the Taycan Turbo (and Turbo S variant), and it sounds promising. Porsche appears to be pretty high on Rimac. Lutz Meschke, chief financial officer of Porsche commented on the news:
"Porsche has accompanied Rimac in its positive development for a year. It quickly became clear to us that Porsche and Rimac could learn a lot from each other. We are convinced of Mate Rimac and his company, so now we have increased our stake and are expanding our cooperation in battery technology," Lutz says.
Mate Rimac, CEO and founder of Rimac also has positive thoughts about this partnership. "It was one of the most important milestones in our history to win Porsche as a partner. The fact that Porsche is now increasing its stake is the best confirmation of our cooperation and the basis for an even closer relationship. We have many ideas that we want to action together in the future. The key is to create a win-win situation for both partners and to add value to our end customers by developing exciting electrified models," Rimac says.
Rimac also gave us a quick update on development of the C_Two. The company says that it's finalizing the car, and will be crash testing soon. Customer deliveries are scheduled to begin in 2020.