Following its secured backing from Porsche, Rimac has started making huge strides, one of which includes hiring new employees. New employees such as Chris Porritt, former Tesla vice president and vehicle engineer. In addition to his prior employment at Tesla, Porritt was also chief engineer at Aston Martin, and spent more than four years at Apple leading auto engineering for Apple’s Titan car project. Now he will officially join Rimac’s team as chief of technology officer.
According to Rimac, Porritt will focus on “future projects” for the company, as stated during a press release. “Rimac Automobili has appointed former Aston Martin chief engineer, VP of engineering at Tesla and lead at Apple’s Special Projects Group, Chris Porritt, to the role of chief technology officer. Chris will report directly to founder and CEO, Mate Rimac, with focus on future Rimac projects.”
Founder and CEO of Rimac Automobili, Mate Rimac, said about the new hire “We have started out in a country which is not known for developing cars. We learned so much through trial and error as it was difficult to attract people from other countries, making the process challenging but exciting. I can not imagine what our journey would have been like and how far along we would be now if we had Chris with us from the early days. I had concerns that people with great industry experience would not be a fit for our culture and company spirit. However, as a car enthusiast through and through, who gets the ‘hands dirty’ himself, Chris fit right in from the first moment. We share the same mind-set: We want to develop cars that raise the bar, are fun and great quality. I can’t wait to see what we will be able to create together.”
In addition, Porritt stated “The opportunity to join Rimac Automobili is an engineer’s dream. Since nearly every key component is designed and built in-house by Rimac, this gives us the freedom to create something that’s unlike anything else that has been done before in the Hypercar world. Rimac is the perfect place to use my combined experience in the engineering of supercars at Aston Martin and the EV engineering experience I gained in California. What the team has already achieved with the development of C_Two thus far is phenomenal, and I look forward to guiding the engineering development of future Rimac products that will push the envelope of performance.”