Mate Rimac, founder of Rimac Automobili, presented the first Croatian self-driving taxi, Verne. After several attempts to call a vehicle via the app, Verne did not come on stage. The reason was a problem with the brake.

“Today we presented Verne, the car, the infrastructure. The car is one of the elements of the ecosystem. We make the car ourselves and are building a factory near the campus. We will produce cars for the whole world. We are now two years away from the next phase, when driving around Zagreb starts. We had a problem with the brake, the car wouldn’t start. It’s a completely different car, the dimensions are like a Golf, but the interior is made to be more comfortable and spacious,” said Rimac.

Rimac Automobili has been collecting funds for the development of self-driving cars for a long time, and one of the largest investors in this project is the European Union with 179.5 million euros. The project encountered several obstacles from the very beginning, so the completion plans were postponed and the promised number of vehicles planned to be produced was reduced.

It’s clear that the self-driving Verne requires more testing and development before it gets a chance to go on the street. “We will be improving the system for years, but we are already at the stage where autonomous driving is more advanced than any driver. We are testing in Zagreb, and in other cities we will have hundreds, even thousands of cars. The price will be lower than with Uber and Bolt. We have contracts with cities from England, Austria, 30 additional cities are planned,” said Mate Rimac.

Source: Index.hr

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