Mate Rimac, founder of Rimac, launched a new level 4 autonomous electric car brand called Verne and coming to market in 2026.
Rimac is best known for its electric hypercar, the Nevera, and for its surprising takeover of Bugatti through its partnership with Porsche.
But now it is stepping into the other side of the EV spectrum: from hypercars to autonomous cars.
Mate Rimac, along with two other Rimac executives, have launched a new brand called Verne. It’s not clear how the Rimac Group plays into this beyond sharing employees, but it sounds like it is part of it, as the brand was launched at Rimac’s headquarters in Croatia today.
Verne is using Mobileye’s level 4 autonomy system and therefore, it’s core technology is more the vehicle platform than the autonomous driving system.
They wrote about the new vehicle:
The vehicle is built on a completely new platform designed around safety and comfort, engineered solely for autonomous driving using the Mobileye Drive autonomous platform. It is completely rethought, conceived, designed, and engineered as a safe and comfortable autonomous vehicle. Built from the ground up it is free from the compromises and disadvantages necessary in using a legacy platform built for human driving.
Here are some pictures of the new Verne autonomous electric vehicle:
As you can see, it’s a two-seater built around the passenger experience since the vehicle is driverless.
There’s an extensive sound system and a giant screen with a UI built for a variety of passenger experiences.
Top comment by SR
They haven't "launched it", they have revealed a prototype of something that's 2 years away.
Mate and his team at Rimac have some fantastic skills and vision, but the hard stuff is yet to come. Ie: manufacture it at scale at low cost, solve autonomous driving, charging network infrastructure etc.
It is built for ride-hailing systems with a high level of customization. Verne says that the customers are going to be able to customize the experience via an app before the vehicle arrives:
It’s a re-envisioning of the ride-hailing app and mobility platform. The customers can personalise the vehicle’s settings via app before ordering a ride. That way, the vehicle will be set exactly how you like it with the comfort, lighting, temperature and even scent. Even though the customer will never own the vehicle, it will be tailored to feel like your own. On the backend, Verne uses all the benefits an autonomous connected fleet provides to make the service run smoothly and efficiently in every city.
Verne is going to launch first in Zhagreb in 2026, and the company plans to expand in Europe and the Middle East shortly after.
The company claims to already have deals with 11 cities.
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