When we visited the Rimac Campus in Kerestinac for the first time, a little over a year and a half ago, it was an impressive building, but largely empty. At that time, it was also announced that a production line for battery packs for BMW will soon arrive in the central part of the building, related to a long-term business worth around two billion euros. Today, that line has been fully assembled, tested and run-in, so serial production of high-voltage battery systems for the new BMW 7, i.e. for its electric variant, the i7, will begin on it.
Huge new production lines were presented to the gathered journalists Mate Rimacfounder and president of Rimac Group, Nurdin PitarevicCEO of Rimac Technology i Marko BrkljačićCOO of Rimac Technology, and the main purpose of the visit was to show progress in capacity expansion and to announce new expansions and employment of (mainly local) workforce.
New employment
Rimac Technology independently develops and manufactures high-voltage battery systems for several programs of the world’s leading car manufacturers, among them the BMW Group and the Saudi Ceer, but also some other manufacturers that cannot (yet) be publicly discussed. About 200 employees, mostly engineers, are already working on this in Croatia, and by the end of the year, an additional 150 people will be employed at the Campus for the needs of serial production. Around 1,200 employees work in Rimac Technology today, while over two thousand are employed in the entire Rimac Group.
Production, of course, takes place in the Rimac Campus, a purpose-built complex and one of the largest industrial projects of its kind in Europe. The facility covers 90,000 m², of which 70% of the capacity is dedicated to the production of battery systems. The production space intended for the BMW i7 program, which we visited, covers almost 15,000 m². In just a few years, two new production lines with a total annual capacity of 300,000 battery modules and 48,000 battery systems were industrialized on the Campus, while there are already plans for new lines, as well as expansion beyond the current dimensions of the Campus.
From a “cube” to a “week”
At the presentation of the business part of the story, Mate Rimac spoke, who particularly emphasized his pride in the fact that he started out of the garage with a BMW “cube”, that he has always been a fan of that brand, and today they come to him for engineering solutions and batteries for their vehicles. Rimac Group companies have attracted over one billion euros in foreign investments. In the last five years, the number of employees has remained around 2,000, but the company’s revenues have grown from less than 100 million to almost one billion euros, indicating a huge increase in efficiency with the same number of people. All cars from our own production (Neveres and Tourbillons) are sold out until 2029.
We then turned to Rimac Technology, whose revenue for 2026 is planned at 345 million euros (which is an increase of about 100 million compared to last year). The long-term goal is to reach one billion euros in the next two to three years. The delivery of over 40,000 vehicle components is planned for this year, which exceeds the original plan of 35,000, primarily due to increased orders from BMW.
Six key projects
Nurdin Pitarević emphasized that all production lines are planned and developed internally. The company is already slowly moving to more advanced platforms without modules and developing “solid-state” batteries completely resistant to ignition. For now, their main products are components that are crucial for electric cars in terms of importance and value: electric motors, inverters and gearboxes, with a market value of 5,000 to 6,000 euros per vehicle, battery sets as the most expensive components (if a car costs 100,000 euros, 15,000 of that is the battery, says Pitarevic), as well as control computer components, worth 500-1,000 euros (and supplies there are usually three per vehicle).
Rimac Technology is currently working on six main projects. Battery sets for Porsche (delivery of 90,000 pieces, the production of which started at Jankomir in 2020), the new BMW i7 (85,000 battery assemblies), components for the Saudi vehicle of the company Ceer on the BMW X5 platform (production will start at the end of this year or the beginning of next year), of course the development and production of components for the Bugatti Tourbillon, and ultimately we are working on battery assemblies for two more mass-produced models – which we cannot reveal.
High-tech factory
A tour of the BMW battery production line is bound to impress anyone. The line is highly automated with an emphasis on robots in controlled conditions. Everything was achieved in close cooperation with the BMW factory in Debrecen for the “Neue Klasse”, where the batteries are delivered. One battery module comes off the conveyor belt every 50 seconds, and five such modules make up the final package, which takes 275 seconds, or less than five minutes, to make. Around 1,080 packages are produced daily at full capacity, for which 200 trucks per day handle logistics with over 200 workers in three shifts.
During the tour of the factory, we found one piece of technical information very interesting. About 5 gigabytes of data from the production process are created and then stored for each assembled battery. They serve so that during exploitation, in the event of any problem, it would be possible to analyze where the error might have occurred. Data is recorded for each screwed screw, each joint is photographed and so on, to ensure the traceability of every detail. An equally fascinating detail is that a fully charged battery for the BMW i7, with around 120 kWh, can supply the average single household with electricity for about 20 days, while it is used up in the car for about 700 kilometers of driving.
The production line is dominated by large robotic arms, a total of 49 robots, including automatic platforms that transport components from station to station, but there is still a crucial human factor. As we heard, the workers are mostly local and experts from the region, and the incentive program gives them “free hands” for good ideas. Pitarevic revealed to us that anyone can propose any improvement of production processes, whereby the best ideas are rewarded financially, with even up to 1,000 euros.
“The Rimac Technology team developed a new battery system, built a completely new production facility, industrialized two full production lines and established end-to-end supply chain. This fully meets the demanding standards of quality and quantity demanded by global premium car manufacturers. This partnership confirmed Rimac Technology’s position as a Tier 1 supplier for the world’s leading companies premium car manufacturers”, concluded Marko Brkljačić, COO of Rimac Technology.
