Bugatti CEO Mate Rimac Says ‘NO’ to EVs and SUVs
At least not for the next 10 years.
In a recent interview with Automobilwoche, a German publication, CEO Mate Rimac said a firm ‘NO’ to EVs and SUVs on behalf of the Bugatti brand. For a guy that built the world’s fastest production electric vehicle, the Rimac Concept One in 2011, his stance is a pleasant surprise.
“A purely electric version is not included in our ten-year plan for Bugatti. There will also be no SUV” were his words.
When he started the process of taking over Bugatti, Porsche and Bugatti stressed that the next car should be fully electric.
“That would have been the easiest thing for me, to take the Nevera, which we have developed for five years, and just rebadge it into a Bugatti,” he said. “You know, change the design… that’s the easiest thing to do.
“But I was fighting furiously with the management of Porsche and Volkswagen, really heated arguments, that the next Bugatti shouldn’t be electric. And I think that was absolutely the right decision.”
Bugatti will “for the foreseeable future” have combustion engines with strong hybridisation.
Rimac said that for now it wants to increase its range on its hyper hybrid cars from 20km to 50km. Bugatti fans can rejoice that the internal combustion engine still has a say in this ‘e-world’.
