布加迪是大众汽车皇冠上的明珠。这位 33 岁的年轻人正在接管它

现在在布加迪掌舵的是 Mate Rimac，一位 33 岁的波斯尼亚出生的工程神童，他对自己所在行业面临的挑战不抱任何幻想。

今天，布加迪以世界上一些最大、最强大的汽油发动机而闻名，有史以来安装在公路车上，布加迪于 2003 年重生，成为大众汽车集团皇冠上的明珠。除了大众，这家全球汽车制造商的其他品牌还包括奥迪、保时捷、兰博基尼和宾利。

从那时起，布加迪一直是公司的技术展示，推动工程师和客户认为可能的极限。一辆可以达到每小时 250 英里的汽车？没问题。一个可以做300？当然，只要你有将近 400 万美元的成本。所有这些性能都包裹在一个设计优雅、精心手工制作的机身中，机身由昂贵的材料定制而成。

但是，以石油产品为燃料的巨大发动机不再是技术奇迹。他们是老派。而在 2021 年，布加迪需要最终进入电动汽车时代。

进入 Mate Rimac，他于 2009 年创立了 Rimac Automoblili，这是一家克罗地亚初创公司，生产 1,900 马力的 Rimac Nevera 电动超级跑车。这位高中刚毕业的天才就已经登上了头条，从此便引起了业界的关注。

7 月，布加迪与 Rimac Automobili 合并——创建了 Bugatti-Rimac，并在此过程中将大众豪华性能标志的多数股权从世界上最大的汽车制造商之一转让给了一家小型初创公司。

“为什么没有人使用这个来让汽车变得有趣和令人兴奋？”

对于汽车行业的 CEO 来说，33 岁的 Rimac 是年轻的一面，由于他的深棕色头发和胡须，他看起来更年轻。 （他的名字读作“matzoh”，没有 Z — Maht-teh — 而他的姓氏和公司的名字读作 Ree-mahts，并带有略微滚动的 R。）

Rimac 经历了一段令人难以置信的快速旅程，达到了这样一个引以为豪的位置。事情开始于 Rimac 在他十几岁的时候赛车时炸毁了一辆宝马的发动机：他决定将宝马变成一辆电动赛车，而不是仅仅修理它。

早在特斯拉出售高性能家用轿车之前，更不用说成为世界上最有价值的公司之一了。那时，里马克的家人已经离开了当时的南斯拉夫——今天他出生的地方是波斯尼亚和黑塞哥维那——并在返回前南斯拉夫之前在德国待了大约十年。这一次，一家人住在新独立的克罗地亚。

“因为我在克罗地亚，我读了很多关于同样出生在克罗地亚的尼古拉·特斯拉的书。尼古拉·特斯拉在 160 年前发明了我们现在到处都在使用的电动机，我想知道，”他说，“这台完美的机器尼古拉特斯拉发明的，为什么没有人用它来让汽车变得有趣和令人兴奋？”

他的电动宝马，被称为绿色怪物，继续创造记录并引起媒体的关注。但 Rimac 很快意识到，从长远来看，将电动机安装到旧汽车中并不是一项可行的业务。相反，他决定从一开始就设计自己的高性能电动汽车。

当时 Rimac 刚从高中毕业。他曾就读于萨格勒布的 VERN' 应用科学大学，但从未毕业。

“我必须从头开始学习所有东西，如果没有导师和支持行业，这在这里非常困难，”他说。 “很多时候我不得不艰难地学习。”

Rimac 没有大投资者来为他的想法提供资金，因此当他和他的第一批员工致力于开发电动超级跑车时，他还接手了老牌公司的项目。许多汽车制造商都在寻求制造电动和混合动力汽车，而 Rimac 对这项技术的清晰理解对他们来说很有价值。

Rimac 说，这部分业务——向其他公司销售电动汽车技术——成为该公司最大的实际收入来源，也是 Rimac Automobili 几乎从一开始就盈利的原因。

现在，这项工作已经分拆到他也经营的一家独立公司，名为 Rimac Technology。该公司将继续为其他汽车制造商开发新的电动汽车技术。

“首先，是你没有听说过的公司，”他说，“然后开始为像科尼赛克这样的小型汽车制造商工作，然后是阿斯顿马丁，然后是像雷诺这样的大公司。”

现代和保时捷两大汽车制造商成为 Rimac Automobili 的大投资者。他们也不会与 CNN Business 讨论他们与 Rimac 的合作。不过，保时捷在将 RImac 和保时捷的姊妹品牌布加迪结合在一起方面发挥了重要作用。保时捷现在拥有布加迪 Rimac 45% 的股份。

与 Mate Rimac 的一天

听到电动汽车行业的企业家继续谈论他们正在做的事情的全球重要性是很正常的。 Mate Rimac 并没有那么简单。

与 Rimac 的对话可能会导致一种认知鞭打。显然，他喜欢汽车。但这就像和一个面包师谈话，他一直在谈论摄入过多精制糖和碳水化合物的危险——然后指出，真的，蛋糕很好吃。

“汽车实际上是所有人类学科的顶峰，”他说。 “它必须漂亮。它必须闻起来很好。它必须听起来很好。一切，所有的感官都与汽车一起工作，所有的材料科学，软件模拟，流体动力学。一切都在车里，一切人类都知道。 ”

但是，从长远来看，这一切都无关紧要。

“我不喜欢这头公牛——”他在早些时候关于超级跑车行业炒作的谈话中说道。 “让我们称其为事物，对吧？它正在制造漂亮的机器，将它们放在墙上，仅此而已。”

他的声音里没有深深的厌恶。他说的好像他只是在陈述一个简单的事实。

我们坐在鹌鹑的一侧，这是加利福尼亚蒙特利汽车周期间的重大活动之一。富有的汽车爱好者正在查看停在修剪整齐的草地上的漂亮老爷车。展出的还有兰博基尼、莲花、宾利和宾尼法利纳等品牌的最新车型，宾尼法利纳是一家销售自己配备 Rimac 工程技术的电动超级跑车的公司。 Rimac Nevera 就坐在我们旁边。

对于像 Nevera 这样的汽车，Rimac 说，“大图，你缩小，在 10 年内将变得无关紧要，因为汽车将不再由人驾驶。它们将是自动驾驶，等等。”

汽车时代的黄昏

但为了避免有人认为 Rimac 可能有一天会在 Nevera 中采用所有这些价值数百万美元的先进电动汽车技术，并用它来制造价格合理的家用电动汽车，他很清楚自己无意与埃隆·马斯克正面交锋。他说，其他人可能会使用 Rimac 技术做到这一点，但他将这等同于在流媒体服务出现时制作更好的音乐 CD。

Rimac 表示，今天，我们正处于汽车时代的黄昏。他只是尽自己的一份力量确保日落是壮观的。

而且，在私人拥有的汽车可以赚钱的同时盈利。 Rimac 将在克罗地亚生产电动超级跑车，而布加迪将继续在其位于法国莫尔斯海姆的当前总部组装高价汽油超级跑车，该品牌最初于 1909 年在那里成立。每辆都将服务于不同类型的客户。

“对我们来说，最简单的 [举动] 就是拿一辆 Nevera 并在上面放上不同的设计，并称它为布加迪，”里马克悲伤地说道。 “但这绝对不是我们要做的。”

目前，布加迪正在构建其当前核心模型 Chiron 的最后几十个示例。在那之后，Rimac 表示将推出一款新的布加迪超级跑车，可能是插电式混合动力车。但他们也可以制造其他布加迪车型——尽管可能不是两座超级跑车——将是全电动的。

与他所说的对汽车未来的悲观态度明显矛盾的是，Rimac 说他希望成立 112 年的布加迪比他活得更久。他说，他现在有“未来 112 年的责任”。

下个世纪可能会带来什么，不仅可以由布加迪 Rimac 决定，还可以由 Rimac 的另一家公司 Rimac Technology 决定。

“我喜欢汽车，我通过卖汽车赚钱，但我认为未来几十年会发生巨大的变化，”他说。 “在过去的几十年里，手机不仅改变了手机行业。苹果不仅颠覆了诺基亚和其他公司。它实际上改变了我们的生活。”

Rimac 还没有准备好说出未来会是什么样子，它是由对汽车的某种彻底重新定义所塑造的。但他正在努力。

Bugatti is the jewel in Volkswagen's crown. This 33-year-old is taking it over

New York (CNN Business)Bugatti, the French manufacturer of $3 million supercars, is over a century old. But now it faces what may be the most difficult maneuver it has ever had to carry out: transitioning to an electric future.

The man now taking the wheel at Bugatti is Mate Rimac, a 33-year-old Bosnian-born engineering prodigy — and one who harbors no illusions about the challenges facing his industry.

Famous today for some of the world's biggest and powerful gasoline engines ever put into a road car, Bugatti had been reborn in 2003 as the jewel in the crown of the Volkswagen Group. Besides VW, the global automaker's other brands include Audi, Porsche, Lamborghini and Bentley.

Ever since, Bugatti has been a technological showcase for the company, pushing the limits of what engineers and customers thought possible. A car that could top 250 miles per hour? No problem. One that can do 300? Sure, as long as you've got the nearly $4 million it costs. And all that performance comes wrapped in an elegantly designed, carefully handcrafted body custom-made from expensive materials.

But enormous engines fueled by petroleum products are no longer technological wonders. They're old school. And in 2021, Bugatti needs to finally enter the age of electric vehicles.

Enter Mate Rimac, who in 2009 founded Rimac Automoblili, a Croatian startup making the 1,900 horsepower Rimac Nevera electric supercar. The genius of high-wattage performance had already grabbed headlines fresh out of high school and he's attracted the industry's attention ever since.

In July, Bugatti merged with Rimac Automobili — creating Bugatti-Rimac, and transferring majority ownership of VW's luxury performance icon from one of the world's largest automakers to a small startup in the process.

'Why was nobody using [this] to make cars fun and exciting?'

For an auto industry CEO, 33-year-old Rimac is on the youthful side, and he looks even younger thanks to his dark brown hair and beard. (His first name is pronounced like "matzoh" without the Z — Maht-teh — while his last name, and the company's, is pronounced Ree-mahts with a slightly rolled R.)

Rimac has had an incredible and rapid journey to such a vaunted position. It began when Rimac blew up the engine in a BMW while racing the car in his late teens: Instead of just fixing it, he decided to turn the BMW into an electric race car.

This was long before Tesla was selling high-performance family sedans, let alone becoming one of the most valuable companies in the world. By then, Rimac's family had left what was then Yugoslavia — today the place he was born is in the country of Bosnia and Herzegovina — and had spent about a decade in Germany before returning to the former Yugoslavia. This time, the family lived in the newly independent nation of Croatia.

"Because I was in Croatia, I read a lot about Nikola Tesla, who was also born in Croatia. Nikola Tesla had invented the electric motor 160 years ago that we use now everywhere and I was wondering," he said, "this perfect machine that Nikola Tesla has invented, why was nobody using it to make cars fun and exciting?"

His electric BMW, dubbed the Green Monster, went on to set records and garner media attention. But Rimac quickly realized putting electric motors into old cars wasn't a viable business for the long term. Instead, he decided he would engineer his own high-performance electric cars from the outset.

Rimac was just out of high school at the time. He attended VERN' University of Applied Science in Zagreb but never graduated.

"I had to learn everything from scratch, which was pretty difficult here without mentors and the supporting industry," he said. "Lots I had to learn the hard way."

Rimac didn't have big investors to bankroll his idea, so while he and his first employees worked on that electric supercar, he also took on projects from established companies. Various automakers were looking to create electric and hybrid cars, and Rimac's clear understanding of the technology was valuable to them.

That part of the business — selling EV technologies to other firms — became the firm's greatest source of actual income and was the reason Rimac Automobili was profitable almost from the start, Rimac says.

Now that line of work has been spun off into a separate company he also runs, called Rimac Technology. That firm will continue developing new electric vehicle technologies for other automakers.

"First, it was companies you didn't hear about," he said, "and then starting to work for small carmakers like Koenigsegg, and then Aston Martin, and then to the bigger ones like Renault."

Two major automakers, Hyundai and Porsche, became big investors in Rimac Automobili. Neither would discuss their work with Rimac with CNN Business. Porsche, though, was instrumental in bringing together RImac and Porsche's sister brand Bugatti. Porsche now owns 45% of Bugatti-Rimac.

A day with Mate Rimac

It's normal to hear entrepreneurs in the electric car industry go on about the global importance of what they're doing. Things aren't that simple with Mate Rimac.

Conversations with Rimac can result in a sort of cognitive whiplash. He loves cars, obviously. But it's like talking to a baker who keeps going on about the dangers of consuming too much refined sugar and carbohydrates — and then pointing out that, really, cake is delicious.

"Cars are actually the culmination of all human disciplines," he said. "It has to be beautiful. It has to smell well. It has to sound well. Everything, all the senses work with the car, all the material sciences, software simulations, fluid dynamics. Everything is in the car, everything humanity knows."

But, in the long run, none of it really matters much.

"I don't like this bull----," he said in an earlier conversation about the hype surrounding the supercar industry. "Let's call things what they are, right? It's making beautiful machines for putting them on a wall and that's it."

There was no deep disgust in his voice. He said it as if he were just stating a plain fact.

We were sitting off to one side at The Quail, one of the major events during Monterey Car Week in California. Wealthy auto enthusiasts were checking out beautiful classic cars parked on neatly trimmed grass. Also on display were the latest models from brands like Lamborghini, Lotus, Bentley and Pininfarina, a company selling its own electric supercar with Rimac engineering. The Rimac Nevera was sitting right next to us.

Of cars like the Nevera, Rimac said, "big picture, you zoom out, are going to be so irrelevant in 10 years because cars are not going to be driven by people anymore. They will be self-driving, and so on."

The dusk of the automobile era

But lest one think Rimac might someday take all this advanced million-dollar EV technology in the Nevera and use it to create affordable electric family cars, he is clear that he has no intention of going head-to-head against Elon Musk. Others might do that with Rimac technology, he said, but he equates that to working on better music CDs just when streaming services are coming out.

Today, we are in the dusk of the automobile era, according to Rimac. He's just doing his part to make sure the sunset is spectacular.

And, also, to turn a profit while there is money to be made in privately owned automobiles. Rimac will make its electric supercars in Croatia, while Bugatti will continue to assemble high-dollar gasoline-burning supercars at its current headquarters in Molsheim, France, where that brand was originally founded in 1909. Each will serve a distinct sort of customer.

"The easiest [move] for us would be to take a Nevera and put a different design on it and call it a Bugatti," Rimac sad. "But that's absolutely not what we are going to do."

Currently, Bugatti is building the last few dozen examples of the Chiron, its current core model. After that, Rimac has indicated there will be a new Bugatti supercar that will probably be a plug-in hybrid. But they could also make other Bugatti models — though maybe not two-seat supercars — that will be fully electric.

In apparent contradiction to his stated pessimism about the future of cars, Rimac says he expects Bugatti, founded 112 years ago, to long outlive him. He now has "the responsibility [of] the next 112 years," he said.

What that next century and then some might bring could be decided not just by Bugatti-Rimac, but by Rimac's other company, Rimac Technology.

"I love cars, I make money by selling cars, but I think the big change that will come in the next decades," he said. "In the last decades, the phones didn't just change the phone industry. Apple didn't just disrupt Nokia and the others. It actually changed our lives."

Rimac isn't ready to say just yet what that future will look like, one shaped by some radical redefinition of the automobile. But he's working on it.