The CEO and founder of Rimac Automoili is Mate Rimac and in his latest video, Mondays with Mate Episode 07, he encourages us all to not waste this opportunity.
While the coronavirus wreaks havok on the world’s health systems and economies, Rimac points out that it’s really important not to waste this spare time, don’t waste it on Instagram, leverage this time at home, to invest in yourself, learn a new skill.
If you have access to the internet, you basically have a choice right now. You can entertain yourself with video games and movies, or you can educate yourself.
This rings true back in Australia, with the NSW Government, offering a range of free TAFE courses. Courses include Business skills, Digital skills like Social Media and Website Creation as well as Leadership and Administration. This means with the right motivation; you could come out of coronavirus with better employment opportunities that going in.
As student, you also get access to Microsoft Office 365 for free, as well as free access to LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com) which contains even more online courses.
As a company, Rimac are in a really strong position, to the point where all employees are being kept on and will continue to receive full salaries, regardless of whether they are able to work or not. Even more, they’re also continuing to hire new employees.
Rimac says the data he’s seen suggests the average business only has enough cash for around 27 days. While this doesn’t appreciate the access to capital that companies may have, borrowing to pay wages is always a fairly dire situation. Rimac are planning on the current situation being with us until the end of the year minimum, but even longer plans are also underway.
The reason Rimac is in such a good financial position is that in the past 1.5 years, Porsche and Hyundai have invested 100 million euros into the company. What does get hurt in this process is timeframes, with the capability of the company to meet deadlines on batteries and drivetrain tech for customers, now restricted.
Rimac’s next big car is the C2, but it’s big unveiling event was scheduled for the Geneva Auto Show that got cancelled due to the coronavirus. Rimac goes on to explain they’re not considering an online launch, as he wants people like the press to be able to experience the car in person.
This means their C2 will likely by 2021 now. Currently going into production, they need to continue to build C2s for crash testing requirements and where possible engineers are continuing to make progress on that front.
Due to the current travel restrictions in Croatia, the testing is being done solely inside the borders of the country.
