Tag Archives: Porsche

A Garage in Croatia

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Millions of Euros for an up-and-coming EV OEM. . .

Although the classic Silicon Valley origin story has it that someone comes up with something in a garage and the rest is history, that story occurs in other parts of the world, as in Croatia.

There, a 21-year-old Mate Rimac in 2009 thought about the prospect of developing an electric supercar.

In 2011 he started Rimac Automobili.

And today Porsche announced that it was investing an additional 70-million Euro in the company so that it now owns 24% of Rimac Autmobili.

In 2019 Hyundai Group invested 80-million Euro in the company, so it, too, owns a chunk.

It is somewhat surprising to think that a small company could become important to larger OEMs.

Perhaps more surprising are comments from Lutz Meschke, deputy chairman of the executive board and member of the executive board for Finance and IT at Porsche: “Mate Rimac inspires us with his innovative ideas.”

Yes, a finance guy talking inspiration.

Meschke went on to note, however, “Our investment in the company has turned out to be absolutely right. Rimac’s value has increased many times since our initial investment.”

Porsche bought 10% in 2018.

Porsche Taycan Driven to a Speed Record–Indoors

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As people spend more and more time indoors because of the pandemic, they are doing all manner of things, from baking sourdough bread to learning how to play musical instruments that they had to pull out of the closet where they abandoned them years earlier.

But then there’s Leh Keen.

He decided to set a Guinness World Record: setting a speed record for a vehicle indoors.

The indoor space he chose was not a rec room that hadn’t been used since the kids were small.

Rather, it was Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, Louisiana, which has the largest contiguous-space exhibit hall, of about 1-million square feet.

The vehicle in question Keen selected was a Porsche Taycan Turbo S, an all-electric car that provides 750 hp and has four-wheel drive. The car has the ability to accelerate from 0 to 60 in 2.6 seconds.

Porsche Taycan Turbo S driven by Leh Keen to an indoor speed record. (Image: Porsche)

Here’s something you probably didn’t think about because you’ve not driven in a convention center space.

The polished concrete floor is slippery.

Keen: “The surface is so unpredictable, so slick, that you have to have complete trust in your car. It truly was like ice – and you’re accelerating flat out, facing a really hard wall at the end. Suddenly, even in a massive space like the one we had, it seems very small.”

The requirement for the record was to start from a standstill and to come to a complete stop.

There are no safety nets. No open doors to escape through if things go badly.

The record was 86 mph. It stood for seven years.

Keen made the run—and the record—with 102 mph.

He said, “102 mph inside a building. What was I thinking?”–gsv