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On December 16,
Herbert Diess, CEO of the Volkswagen Group, was strengthened in his position after an arduous battle with Dieter Potsch,
chairman of the supervisory board, not satisfied with the changes of executives in the different brands and areas of the German consortium .
But beyond this ratification in office for the next few years, the group made several important announcements.
Neither Lamborghini, nor Bentley, nor Ducati are for sale.
"They will continue to be part of the Volkswagen Group."
And it was decided that Bentley was from last March 1 under the Audi umbrella.
Herbert Diess, patron of the Volkswagen Group
Mind you, not a word was said about Bugatti.
Diess has long considered the French firm as a problem, rather than a solution, since it does not make profitable the exclusive units made of its only model, the Chiron, nor did it earn money with its predecessor, the Veyron.
At that time it was already suspected that Rimac, a Croatian company of which Porsche owned 15%, could be interested in the purchase of Bugatti.
We were not on the wrong track.
24% ENLARGEMENT
Lutz Meschke, the head of Finance and Information Technology at Porsche, has been a fervent defender of the Stuttgart brand's commitment to Rimac, a Croatian company that, beyond manufacturing electric supercars such as the Refrigerator that has 1,914 horses, offers technological solutions in the field of battery management software, the propulsion of an electric vehicle and the development of new components for high-performance zero-emission supercars.
Rimac Refrigerator, Porsche Taycan and Rimac Refrigerator
Hence, Lutz Meschke was in charge of attending the Rimac capital increase and
on March 9 it became official that Porsche already had 24% of the company, of which the main shareholder (37%) continues to be its creator. , Mate Rimac.
On that occasion, Meschke said: "Rimac is very well positioned when it comes to solutions applicable to prototypes and models manufactured in small series".
At the same time, Oliver Blume, CEO of Porsche and also the Volkswagen Group's
chief
production
officer, was commissioned by Diess to find a solution for the hot potato that was Bugatti.
And Meschke's claim about Rimac matches perfectly with the exclusive Bugatti production.
Most importantly, Rimac can make the Chiron's successor 100% electric.
TWO COMPANIES IN ONE
Given the synergies and complementarities, the formula had to be created for these two companies to merge into one.
At first glance, the solution found is easy: a joint venture called Rimac Bugatti has been created, in which Rimac will hold 55% of the capital and 45% will be in the hands of Porsche.
Mate Rimac will be the CEO of the new company, while Oliver Blume and Lutz Meschke will be members of the supervisory board of the new company.
Mateo Rimac, CEO of the company of the same name
However, this movement has forced Volkswagen to transfer the shares of one of its brands, Bugatti, to Porsche, in such a way that the latter company sold part to Rimac to form the new Rimac-Bugatti company.
Because if we talk about the shareholding structure, the situation of Porsche is, to say the least, curious.
As a brand it belongs to the Volkswagen Group; but as a company, Porsche Automobile Holding SE is the main shareholder of the Volkswagen Group with 30.4% of the shareholding. And, in addition to the 45% stake in Rimac-Bugatti, it will continue to hold 24% of Rimac.
In short, the Volkswagen Group with this solution through Porsche and Rimac prevents the disappearance of one of the most legendary automobile brands,
Bugatti, which will emerge in the next decade as fully electric,
combining German experience in manufacturing with innovation in new components and alloys from the Croatian Rimac.
Oliver Blume, CEO of Porsche
The Rimac Bugatti joint venture will add the Croatian company's 300 employees to the French company's 130.
The Bugatti Automobiles SAS company does not disappear, but will be a subsidiary of the joint venture.
Bugatti will continue to have its factory in Molsheim (France), where it now assembles the Chiron.
At the helm of the daily operations of the company will be Mate Rimac,
who considers that «Bugatti and Rimac are a perfect combination and both contribute assets: we have positioned ourselves as pioneers in the electrical technology industry; while Bugatti has more than a century of experience in developing world-class cars and therefore
brings with it an outstanding tradition that is virtually unique in the history of the automotive industry.
At the moment, at the product level it has been confirmed that the
Rimac Refrigerator will be produced by the joint venture and that it will also carry out the electrification of the Bugatti Chiron.
From there, future models will be developed, without defining whether they will be marketed under the Bugatti, or Rimac, or Rimac-Bugatti brand;
or all three will coexist.
The Audi Q4 e-tron has just gone on sale in Spain
AUDI ELECTRIC SINCE 2026
Bentley led the way and now Audi will follow. The Ingolstadt brand has set its agenda towards full electrification, the first phase of which starts as early as 2026. From
that year on, the development of combustion models will be frozen and only electrical work will be done, although that does not mean that they will stop produce heat engines.
This will happen in 2033, a horizon in which any trace other than electricity will have disappeared from the ring mark.
Bentley and Audi go hand in hand in the electrification strategy because, in fact, the British depends on the German technology to make this evolutionary leap, in their case from 2030,
the year from which it will only sell electric.
So the Rimac-Bugatti movement will not affect practically anything: "The synergies with Bugatti are very small and will not be significant with Rimac either," said Adrian Hallmark, CEO of Bentley, at the presentation of his second plug-in hybrid, the Flying Spur limousine.
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