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High-tech automotive manufacturer to open UK R&D site
Rimac has provided electri ed
technology to British brands
Croatian high-tech automotive
manufacturer Rimac Automobili has
announced that it is to open a new
R&D of ce in the UK.
Rimac Automobili’s R&D of ce
is based in Warwick Enterprise Park
and it is set to employ 30 people
by the end of 2021, closely
collaborating with both the UK
automotive industry and Rimac’s
Croatian headquarters. Rimac
currently employs nearly 1,000
people and is rapidly expanding.
Rimac Automobili has close ties
to the UK, with H.R. Owen as a part
Young guns boost Brandauer
The power of young minds has
played a key role in the launch of
a new modular tooling approach
that is enabling the rapid
development of new nose clip
designs for use in face coverings
all over the world.
Brandauer, a UK metal
pressings and stamping
specialists, has employed six
apprentices in the roll-out of its
Quick Clip Tool modular tooling
concept, which was one of the
rst to win funding from Innovate
UK’s Covid-19 Business-Led-
Innovation in Response to Global
Disruption fund.
The company used £75,000
to develop a quick changeover
capability to a progression tool,
to manufacture the clips in
multiple pro les, widths,
thicknesses and lengths.
It has given the Birminghambased
manufacturer the
opportunity to win over £500,000
of reshoring business from Asia
over the next ve years and
extends its production capacity to
100 million nose clips per year.
This meets a 50% increase in
demand from existing customers,
as well as selling its own
products direct to the
marketplace.
Rowan Crozier, CEO of
Brandauer, said: “With funding
secured from Innovate UK, we
decided to get our young
apprentices to lead on the
project, with six of them chosen
to work on the design, the
prototyping, the product
introduction and then the actual
manufacture.
“They were overseen by the
senior management team, but
intervention was rarely needed.
Instead, we revelled in watching
young engineers embrace a task
that could save lives as well as
being commercially viable for our
business.”
of the global partners network. The
of ce is part of the build-up to
Rimac’s launch of its second electric
hypercar, the C_Two, which Rimac
will deliver to the UK through a new
£40 million HR Owen ‘experience
centre’ in Hertfordshire.
The company has already
provided electri ed technology to a
number of British automotive brands
such as Aston Martin and Jaguar
Land Rover, as well as being a
supplier to many of the world’s
largest car makers, including
Hyundai, Porsche, Automobili
Pininfarina, Koenigsegg and others.
Soon, Rimac will reveal the ultimate
showcase of its EV technology: their
hypercar C_Two, in its nal form. It
will be one of the fastest production
cars in the world.
Designed, engineered and built
in-house at Rimac Automobili, and
subject to a multi-year homologation
process, the C_Two will soon enter
series production, limited to 150
units. The Rimac C_Two promises a
top speed of 258 mph, a 0-62mph
time of under two seconds, and a
0-100 mph time of 4.3 seconds.
“While Croatia will always be our
home, we have decided to take the
opportunity to gather a small team in
the UK, where the automotive
industry has a long history and great
expertise,” said founder and CEO
Mate Rimac.
“We are of the strong opinion that
British engineers are world-class in
the eld of electri cation and future
of mobility. While we are starting with
a small of ce, we might expand
signi cantly in the years to come,
working on Rimac’s future projects,
while closely collaborating with our
team of engineers, designers and
technicians back in Croatia.”
Virgin Galactic grows its eet as it unveils VSS Imagine
Virgin Galactic has unveiled the
rst Spaceship III in its growing
eet, VSS Imagine.
Virgin Galactic is now working
to scale the business for the longterm.
VSS Imagine will commence
ground testing, with glide ights
planned for this summer from
Spaceport America in New Mexico.
The breakthrough livery design,
nished entirely with a mirror-like
material, re ects the surrounding
environment, constantly changing
colour and appearance as it travels
from earth to sky to space. Along
with providing thermal protection,
this dynamic material is naturally
appealing to the human eye,
re ecting our inherent
human fascination
with space and the
transformative
experience of
space ight.
Leveraging a
Glide ights for VSS Imagine are
planned for the summer
modular design, the
SpaceShip III class of
vehicles are built to
enable improved
performance in terms of
maintenance access and ight
rate. Manufacturing progresses on
VSS Inspire, the second SpaceShip
III vehicle within the Virgin Galactic
eet. The introduction of the
Spaceship III class of vehicles is
an important milestone in Virgin
Galactic’s multi-year effort that
targets ying 400 ights per year,
per spaceport.
VSS Imagine is unveiled ahead
of VSS Unity’s next test ight,
which is planned for May 2021.
6 April 2021, issue 1 - Machinery Classifi ed
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