I'm Mate Rimac, founder and CEO of Rimac Automobili. Over the past eight years the
goal has shifted. It started with a dream to make my own car, and now we consider
ourselves as a technology company pushing the limits of electric vehicles
and building the next generation of electric sports car.
all parts are developed in 3d models the designers work on them then the
engineers aerodynamics crash safety production all of that has to be taken
into consideration then in the end when we have the finished part in the 3d
model we have to decide how to produce it for some more complex parts like this
one the rear bumper when it's a big part we usually make a positive model which
is machined out of a solid block which represents the final geometry of the
real part then we laminate a composite tool which in this case consists of six
or seven pieces in order to be able to disassemble it once it's laminated and
from that tool we make the piece which is a carbon fiber piece in this case
which then gets either painted in clear coat or in a certain paint for other
parts usually small parts which are made in higher volume we make a direct mold
or a direct tool out of metal or in this case aluminum the first step of the
production of the composite parts is to get the 3d models and get the
three-dimensional shape into a flat plane to be able to cut it then the
machine the cutter cuts the material specifically for this part for the
different layers in this case it's a prepreg carbon fiber piece which means
the carbon fiber has pre impregnated resin into it already then the
colleagues here in the carbon fiber Department laminates the carbon fiber in
different ways and different angles with different layers and different materials
over the mold it gets vacuum backed and then put in the into the other place in
the autoclave that's cooked under high pressure and high temperature in a
special curve after that it gets taken out of the mold cut bonded if necessary
painted or upholstered and then into the car or if it's a part of a battery pack
it gets into the battery pack production depends which part is so here we don't
only produce the parts of the car like the body parts in the interior
but also functional parts like battery module housings or in this case the
Power Distribution units for Koenigsegg Agera so many parts are made here not
just the body parts of the car
so we basically had to learn all of these things how to make a mold how to
develop a part how to make a body panel and in the beginning our parts were
taught to best let's say they were heavy and the surface quality was not really
good so it took a lot of effort and time and
learning to get to the level where we are now where we can have you know
perfectly looking clear carbon pieces and especially the structural parts for
the the safety relevant components like battery pack housings and for the next
model also the carbon fiber monocoque and especially it took quite some
investment to get here with the autoclaves and the other equipment so
widen the concept one have a monocoque because I couldn't afford the autoclave
in the beginning so after the parts are finished with the autoclave and we get
we get them out of the mold they get cut bonded if necessary if it's multiple
parts then they come into the paint shop so this is for example the carbon fiber
piece straight out of out of the mold and then the guys here prepared them and
paid them and until we get a finish like this it's about 15 layers of clear coat
but they can also be painted in different kind of colour schemes and the
good thing is this paint shop is right next to the carbon fibre production so
if there is some issue the guys can work with each other to work out all of the
problems and to get to the right quality and to see where the issue happened
whether in the production of the parts or in the paint shop so we are here in a
machine shop of Rimac Ultima building so we are not just making the car and the
systems but also the little parts we start with a block of material like this
for example which is aluminium and from that we make a bunch of different parts
in this case for example a gearbox or a part of the powertrain or even the
little bits and pieces like the levers in the on the steering column or parts
of the battery pack even the lights of the car so from the same local material
there are thousands of parts being produced not just for our own cars but
also for the stuff we do for other manufactures for Koenigsegg Aston Martin
and a bunch of others so it starts as a block of material and we do the
all the little bits and pieces then do the systems and then they go into the
cars so besides just making the parts there is also a lot of tools and jigs
necessary to produce parts so this is for example part of a mold for carbon
fiber piece so this is also made here so we design the parts engineer them
develop the tools then we make the tools here we make the parts make the systems
and then the whole car so the big step for us is coming from the technology
company and the very small volume manufacture to a serious supplier in the
car industry so we want to scale up to thousands of units so of course you
can't produce components like this anymore
I love machine parts they look nice but they are expensive to produce and it
takes a lot of time so going into high-volume production it doesn't work
like this anymore we are expanding our machine shop a lot we are moving into a
new location in the next within the next year and there will be tens of machines
dozens of machines around now we have just a couple of them but we will also
use a lot of more casting and plastic parts and so on when we go into higher
production