Thirty-five-year-old Mate Rimac might be one of the most interesting engineering minds of the modern era. The Croatian genius went from electric-swapping his BMW E30 in his twenties to controlling two of the most advanced hypercar manufacturers in the world and becoming one of the biggest players in the automotive industry. The guy has a track record so proven that I’m willing to at least hear him out. So when he says he’s launching a new autonomous taxi pilot project early this year and plans to have commercial operations up and running in Zagreb, Croatia by 2026, it’s probably going to happen.
Project 3 Mobility is Mate Rimac’s newest initiative, with support from Kia, to get people in autonomous electric pods for their daily errands. Mate wants to “change the lives of more people” with this project, providing easy-access EV urban transport. According to Autocar, the company has been using an old Renault Espace van as the prototype for its autonomous machine, though the finished product will likely be a unique P3M design when it debuts in a couple of months.
This project has largely been hush hush for the last couple of years because Mate wants to avoid “underdelivering” in the eyes of the public, waiting until Project 3 has a viable product to show before hyping the company to the world. He’s also clear that Project 3 Mobility is a separate entity within the Bugatti Rimac portfolio, despite the fact that he’s CEO of all three brands.
This new as-yet-unnamed vehicle will have the ability to operate without human interaction. The plan to get these machines out into the world will incorporate a comprehensive infrastructure build out, including autonomous charging stations, storage hubs, and parking. Mr. Rimac describes the autonomous machines as “a car but a completely different type.”
When he’s not building 1,900 horsepower electric hypercars or 16-cylinder quad-turbo monsters, Mate Rimac is thinking about the engineering problems involved with last-mile city transit, and I just think that’s neat.