Hyundai, Kia to collaborate with Croatian automaker Rimac on high-performance electric vehicles

When you think of an exotic European hypercar, perhaps even including high-performance electric vehicles, what countries come to mind? Italy? Germany?

Chances are, Croatia isn’t the first name you think of in this free-association exercise.

After all, the U.S. market’s experience with Eastern European automobiles hasn’t exactly been stellar—lest we forget the Yugo.

But the electric hypercars from Croatian automaker Rimac Automobili appear to be as far as you can get from those disposable automotive nightmares from Yugoslavia, which for a short time enticed consumers in the U.S. automotive market with low sticker prices that turned out to be reflective of even lower useful-life expectancies.

In contrast, CBS News in 2012 characterized the Rimac’s Concept One as the “World’s first million-dollar electric supercar, which at the time boasted 1,088 horsepower from a powertrain of four electric motors, a 2.8-second zero to 60 figure, and a top speed of 190 mph.

In the years since, Rimac has boosted those performance figures even further with the Concept S and the C_Two, the latter of which is capable of 258 mph, according to the automaker.

It also helps that, from a design standpoint, you can make a strong case that Rimac is making some of the hottest-looking sports cars currently in production in the world.

Rimac, a young automaker and automotive technology company founded in 2009 by then 21-year-old entrepreneur Mate Rimac, is based in Zagreb, Croatia.

In their short corporate lifespan, Rimac has earned a reputation both for building record-breaking electric performance cars and respected technology for electric powertrain components—so respected that they have now been selected by Hyundai Motor Group for a strategic partnership with Hyundai and Kia to collaborate on high-performance electric vehicles, according to a joint press release issued yesterday.

Both the Kia and Hyundai divisions will be involved with Rimac in the collaboration, according to the announcement. An investment by Hyundai Motor Group of 80 million euros in Rimac will support the collaboration.

“Rimac is an innovative company with outstanding capabilities in high-performance electric vehicles,” said Euisun Chung, Executive Vice Chairman of Hyundai Motor Group. “Its startup roots and abundant experience collaborating with automakers combined with technological prowess makes Rimac the ideal partner for us. We look forward to collaborating with Rimac on our road to Clean Mobility.”

“We are very impressed by the Hyundai Motor Group’s vision and prompt and decisive initiative,” said Rimac, who now serves as CEO of the company he founded. “We believe that this technology partnership will create maximum value for our companies and their customers. Rimac is still a young and relatively small but fast-growing company. We see a strong investor and technology partner in Hyundai Motor Group and believe that this collaboration will charge the company’s position as a Tier-1 electrification components supplier to the industry.”

Given the strides that Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis have made recently in breathing some fresh excitement into a generally somnolent automotive landscape, it’s certainly a partnership that brings some tantalizing possibilities to the enthusiast’s imagination.

We’ll certainly be keeping an eye on what comes out of this partnership.