German sports car icon Porsche and Croatian electric sports car maker Rimac have agreed to create a new supercar company that also includes French high-performance car maker Bugatti, officials said on Monday.
It is noteworthy that Porsche and Bugatti belong to the German auto giant Volkswagen Group, and the new joint venture called "Bugatti Rimac" is expected to be established as a manufacturer of supercars in the last quarter of this year.
Rimac will own a 55% stake in the joint venture, while Porsche will own 45%, and the two companies said Bugatti's shares would be transferred from Volkswagen to Porsche and then to Rimac. Porsche currently owns a 24% stake in Rimac, up from an initial 10% ownership stake in 2018.
The first cars planned in the joint venture are a Bugatti V8 with a 1,500 hp engine called the Chiron, and an all-electric supercar called the Rimac Nivera, priced at $2.4 million, with 1,900 hp and a speed of more than 250 mph (400 km/h). Previously, these two cars were announced separately by the two companies.
The Bugatti Rimac is expected to have about 430 employees. This includes 300 at Rimac's headquarters in Croatia, and 130 at the Bugatti factory in Molsheim, France.
With Volkswagen's direction towards the production of electric cars, vehicles with large and powerful combustion engines are not in line with the shift towards electric cars that will dominate the global auto industry, according to the American newspaper, "The Wall Street Journal."
Volkswagen, which recently said it would phase out combustion-engine vehicles in Europe and complete this by 2035, wants to focus development resources on the electric vehicle industry.
The Italian Lamborghini and Ferrari, McLaren and Aston Martin are also planning to manufacture super electric cars in the coming years, according to the American newspaper.
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