Genius Rimac: Founder of high performance electric car technology company

Thirty-three-year-old bearded sharply dressed, Mate Rimac, founder of an electric car company that sells some of the latest electric cars on the planet which started out in a tiny garage in an old banger. Using parts from a forklift truck he converted an old BMW saloon dubbed as a green monster into a testbed for electric technology he was developing. He converted the old banger and then went on to compete in motorsport events and win against conventionally-powered machines, by introducing the world’s fastest electric car in 2007.

In 2009 he set up his company and said “ I wanted to build a car, that’s all I wanted to do”.

He decided to turn his back on California in favour of his native Croatia and formed Rimac Automobili based in Sveta Nedelja, a small town outside the capital Zagreb. Rimac Automobili became famous for building ultra-exclusive electric hypercars. The Concept One, first unveiled in 2011, had a top speed of 220mph (354km/h) and only eight were ever made, as one was famously destroyed when the Tv presenter Richard Hammond careered off the road during a competition in Switzerland.   Concept 2 is even more extreme with a claimed top speed of 258mph (415km/h), able to accelerate from 0-60mph ( 0-97km/h) in 1.85 seconds, which is due to go on sale this year with a price tag of £1.8m ($2.4m/ €2m.

The high-end cars form only one part of Rimac’s business model, as the company is fast becoming a cutting-edge technology supplier to other car manufacturers to help them build their own high-performance electric cars.