According to foreign media reports, BMW and Croatian company Rimac said on the 9th that they have reached a cooperation agreement in high-voltage battery technology for electric vehicles, aiming to challenge Asia’s dominance in this field.
Rimac is an electric supercar manufacturer in which Porsche holds a 45% stake. The company is currently expanding its business scope to supply battery systems and powertrain components to other car companies as a supplier. Rimac aims to produce 100,000 batteries per year between 2024 and 2026.
Currently, automakers are under increasing pressure to cut capital expenditures on electric vehicles. High-end electric car start-up Lucid is also trying to make up for its relatively low sales of electric cars by selling its electric drive technology to other car companies such as Aston Martin.
Rimac CEO Mate Rimac said in 2023 that a German automaker would use Rimac’s battery system in a high-performance model starting this year, with annual production of about 4 Thousands of vehicles, and more models will be authorized to use its system.
BMW declined to provide more details about the jointly developed batteries or new models. The company only stated that it would not use this cooperation to provide new cylindrical power batteries for the “Neue Klasse” electric vehicle that will be put into production in 2025.
In 2023, BMW’s pure electric vehicles will account for 15% of total sales, and it said it expects this figure to reach 50% by 2030. Although the company has its own battery research center in Germany, it leaves large-scale development work to partners, with billions of euros in orders with CATL and EVE Energy in China and Europe Produce batteries.
