Rimac scores big hire: former Tesla VP of engineering and Apple car lead Chris Porritt

Since Rimac secured backing from Porsche, it has been making big moves and making many new hires — arguably none bigger than the new one announced this week, Chris Porritt.

Porritt is the former Tesla vice president of vehicle engineering, and prior to Tesla, he was a chief engineer at Aston Martin.

In 2016, Electrek exclusively reported that Porritt left Tesla to join Apple’s Special Projects group.

While the longtime auto engineer joined Apple as “Special Projects group PD administrator,” an intentionally vague title, Electrek and sister site 9to5Mac were able to confirm that he was going to the Cupertino company to lead auto engineering for Apple’s Titan car project.

After more than four years at Apple, Porritt is moving to Croatia to join Rimac as chief technology officer.

In a press release, Rimac said that Porritt will focus on “future projects” for the company:

Rimac Automobili has appointed former Aston Martin chief engineer, VP of engineering at Tesla and lead at Apple’s Special Projects Group, Chris Porritt, to the role of chief technology officer. Chris will report directly to founder and CEO, Mate Rimac, with focus on future Rimac projects.

Mate Rimac, founder and CEO of Rimac Automobili, commented on the important new hire: 

We have started out in a country which is not known for developing cars. We learned so much through trial and error as it was difficult to attract people from other countries, making the process challenging but exciting. I can not imagine what our journey would have been like and how far along we would be now if we had Chris with us from the early days. I had concerns that people with great industry experience would not be a fit for our culture and company spirit. However, as a car enthusiast through and through, who gets the ‘hands dirty’ himself, Chris fit right in from the first moment. We share the same mind-set: We want to develop cars that raise the bar, are fun and great quality. I can’t wait to see what we will be able to create together.

Porritt added:

The opportunity to join Rimac Automobili is an engineer’s dream. Since nearly every key component is designed and built in-house by Rimac, this gives us the freedom to create something that’s unlike anything else that has been done before in the Hypercar world. Rimac is the perfect place to use my combined experience in the engineering of supercars at Aston Martin and the EV engineering experience I gained in California. What the team has already achieved with the development of C_Two thus far is phenomenal, and I look forward to guiding the engineering development of future Rimac products that will push the envelope of performance.

Rimac is currently completing the development of the Concept_Two, a new all-electric hypercar.

The company has also been working with other automakers, especially Porsche, on their electric vehicle programs.

There have also been rumors that Apple was working with Rimac on the “Apple Car” but we’ve not heard much in recent years.