Last year, Rimac chief Mate Rimac began talking about his ideas for the Project 3 Mobility (P3M) division he created as a separate arm within Rimac. In development for more than five years and about as far as one can get from the seven-figure hypercar space and still be talking about a car, Rimac’s idea centers on an electric robotaxi that “could change the way people move around cities.” Reports in January said P3M planned a concept reveal this year of “a car but a completely different type.” The CEO logged on Instagram to post the first teaser, a stop-motion bit with a short soundtrack by the American rapper Common. The most unexpected aspect of the tease is that the cutout shape traipsing through the frame definitely looks like a regular car.
The caption at the end of the vid asks us to “Stay in the looooop!”, a tagline that would make sense for a driverless vehicle on a set route or geofenced in a central downtown area. We hope there’s a story behind the flying cat, too.
In the U.S., much of the autonomy focus has been on getting driverless vehicles to work just like the vehicles we drive now and within existing infrastructure. Rimac’s take is, “We think that a lot of people are missing the bigger picture and focusing on some of the building blocks, like the autonomous driving system itself. … We believe maybe that’s not the differentiator itself, that there are some other differentiating factors within the ecosystem of autonomous mobility.” Project 3 Mobility is also said to be working up “chargers, storage hubs, and parking spaces” as part of the ecosystem.
Project 3 has a website now, championing the company’s aspirations of “redefining urban mobility” and “building an urban ecosystem for autonomous, safe, and effortless movement.” A funding round in February raised another 100 million euros ($108M U.S.), another step toward the $535 million euros ($578M U.S.) P3M believes it will need for market launch. The first robotaxis are scheduled to roll out on Rimac’s home streets of Zagreb, Croatia in 2026, followed by the UK and Germany in 2027.
