Photo: Verne, @alex_avoigt via X
A couple of days ago, Mate Rimac teased an upcoming robotaxi service, surprising almost everyone. The official announcement shows a driverless car design that looks surprisingly similar to Tesla's robotaxi. Not only is the car's design similar, but the operating concept and the ride-hailing app's functions show that Mate Rimac has been paying close attention to everything Musk promised.
The EV enthusiast who started his business in a garage in Croatia somehow built the world's fastest electric supercar and delivered the extraordinary Bugatti Tourbillon that left everyone speechless. However, when Mate Rimac teased a new robotaxi, the same people looked at him in disbelief.
Rimac announced a robotaxi built by its driverless arm P3 Mobility, which was renamed Verne. The new name is a hat-tip to the 19th-century visionary and writer Jules Verne. While Rimac has been working on autonomous driving technology since 2017, the Verne robotaxi looks like a blatant copy of Elon Musk's robotaxi.
Not only was the car's design inspired by Tesla's robotaxi sketches, but the whole operating concept and ride-hailing software were based on the robotaxi ideas that Tesla and Elon Musk had shared so far. For instance, Rimac promised that riders would be able to listen to their own music and customize the experience by setting the temperature, lighting, and even scent when they request a ride. These are the exact same features that Tesla showcased during the first-quarter earnings call in April and during Investor Day in June, when it also showed its ride-hailing app concept.
The fact that this announcement was made right before Tesla's August 8 robotaxi unveiling is no coincidence. It's not much different from OpenAI announcing multimodal ChatGPT-4o one day before Google introduced its new Gemini AI assistant. Hint: there's no ChatGPT-4o yet, the same as there'll be no Verne robotaxi soon. Rimac says the service will launch in 2026, which looks like a safe horizon for now.
Even though Rimac copied Elon Musk's ideas, the announcement will make Elon Musk look like a me-too wannabe when he finally presents Tesla robotaxi. Until now, few people had expectations from Tesla's August 8 reveal. However, after Rimac announced Verne, anything less would look like a failure. That will be interesting to watch, considering that Tesla hasn't shown the robotaxi design, although several design sketches have surfaced in the past year.
One of the biggest questions people will ask about Rimac Verne robotaxi is who makes its autonomous driving software. As Tesla and other robotaxi companies showed, achieving autonomous driving is far from trivial, requiring enormous computing resources. Rimac announced that its robotaxis will use Mobileye Drive autonomous driving technology. This comprises cameras, lidar, and radar sensors, which are elegantly integrated into the car's body not to make it look like a Frankenstein vehicle.
There's no steering wheel and no pedals inside the vehicle, as Rimac aims for Level-4 autonomy. The robotaxi has only two seats for the same reason the Tesla robotaxi has two seats: the vast majority of rides is hailed by one or two people. The Verne robotaxi features a curved 43-inch display to keep riders entertained and a center console with basic controls to start and stop the ride.
Verne robotaxi service is promised to launch in 2026 in Zagreb, Croatia, with plans to expand the service in other cities in the UK, Europe, and the Middle East. However, as Tesla discovered, it would be difficult to overcome European regulatory hurdles, which have prevented autonomous driving efforts from gaining the same acceptance as in China or the US.
Rimac announced a robotaxi built by its driverless arm P3 Mobility, which was renamed Verne. The new name is a hat-tip to the 19th-century visionary and writer Jules Verne. While Rimac has been working on autonomous driving technology since 2017, the Verne robotaxi looks like a blatant copy of Elon Musk's robotaxi.
Not only was the car's design inspired by Tesla's robotaxi sketches, but the whole operating concept and ride-hailing software were based on the robotaxi ideas that Tesla and Elon Musk had shared so far. For instance, Rimac promised that riders would be able to listen to their own music and customize the experience by setting the temperature, lighting, and even scent when they request a ride. These are the exact same features that Tesla showcased during the first-quarter earnings call in April and during Investor Day in June, when it also showed its ride-hailing app concept.
The fact that this announcement was made right before Tesla's August 8 robotaxi unveiling is no coincidence. It's not much different from OpenAI announcing multimodal ChatGPT-4o one day before Google introduced its new Gemini AI assistant. Hint: there's no ChatGPT-4o yet, the same as there'll be no Verne robotaxi soon. Rimac says the service will launch in 2026, which looks like a safe horizon for now.
Even though Rimac copied Elon Musk's ideas, the announcement will make Elon Musk look like a me-too wannabe when he finally presents Tesla robotaxi. Until now, few people had expectations from Tesla's August 8 reveal. However, after Rimac announced Verne, anything less would look like a failure. That will be interesting to watch, considering that Tesla hasn't shown the robotaxi design, although several design sketches have surfaced in the past year.
One of the biggest questions people will ask about Rimac Verne robotaxi is who makes its autonomous driving software. As Tesla and other robotaxi companies showed, achieving autonomous driving is far from trivial, requiring enormous computing resources. Rimac announced that its robotaxis will use Mobileye Drive autonomous driving technology. This comprises cameras, lidar, and radar sensors, which are elegantly integrated into the car's body not to make it look like a Frankenstein vehicle.
There's no steering wheel and no pedals inside the vehicle, as Rimac aims for Level-4 autonomy. The robotaxi has only two seats for the same reason the Tesla robotaxi has two seats: the vast majority of rides is hailed by one or two people. The Verne robotaxi features a curved 43-inch display to keep riders entertained and a center console with basic controls to start and stop the ride.
Verne robotaxi service is promised to launch in 2026 in Zagreb, Croatia, with plans to expand the service in other cities in the UK, Europe, and the Middle East. However, as Tesla discovered, it would be difficult to overcome European regulatory hurdles, which have prevented autonomous driving efforts from gaining the same acceptance as in China or the US.
Google News