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Verne is Rimac’s attempt at a fully autonomous EV robotaxi

Credit: Verne

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Verne is the newest participant in the race to develop a fully autonomous, boundary-free EV robotaxi, and it comes at the hands of Rimac.

A sensation in the realm of EV supercars, Rimac is synonymous with ultra-luxurious electric vehicles that push the boundaries of performance, if you’re willing to pay the price.

Now, the company’s founder, Mate Rimac, and two of his closest colleagues from Rimac Group, both Marko Pejković and Adriano Mudri, have launched Verne, the company’s crack at an autonomous robotaxi that will be launched in Zagreb, Croatia, in 2026.

Video: The Rimac Nevera rips through the streets of Monaco

Mudri has been named Chief Design Officer at Verne, while Pejković takes over as CEO of the new venture. Its goal: built a fully autonomous EV, enable it as a mobility service platform, and build an adequate infrastructure to support it.

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Fully Autonomous EV

Verne will launch a vehicle that is built upon a completely new platform that is designed around safety and comfort, two factors that the company feels are most important in the robotaxi experience.

Completely engineered from the ground up, Verne will develop an autonomous EV using Mobileye Drive, an autonomous platform.

Starting from scratch and building what it believes will be fully operational within two years, the platform is free of any compromises and disadvantages that would come from developing a groundbreaking vehicle type with scraps inspired by a vehicle designed for human driving.

Mobility Service Platform (MSP)

Tailored for driver-free pickup, passengers are the first thought in Verne’s initial development. Of course, this is no different than traditional ride-hailing services that exist today, but without a human controlling the wheel, things need to be different.

Before ordering a ride, the Verne app will allow users to completely personalize everything. From temperature to comfort to lighting to scent, those who request a ride from a Verne EV can choose everything.

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Infrastructure

Verne will expand past Zagreb in the coming years, and each city where the company operates will be the home of the “Mothership,” where every vehicle is inspected, maintained, cleaned, and charged.

Verne’s first production facility for the new EV will be in Croatia. The cars will be deployed worldwide.

New Leadership

Mudri has huge expectations for Verne, which is named after Jules Verne, an author who is said to be “the man who invented the future”:

“Just as he used the theme of travel as the driving force in his storytelling, we use it as our inspiration in shaping a future filled with imaginative innovation and tangible achievement. His faith in the future and his spirit sparked the curiosity in generations of scientists and explorers. Making things that sometimes seem impossible, possible.”

Mate Rimac said the goal for Verne is to have more than just Point A to Point B transportation:

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“The end result would be the best possible mobility experience for everyone. This means that every customer will have a better service than the best mobility service enjoyed by the very rich, through the service that is affordable for all. You will have a safe and reliable driver, a vehicle with more interior space and comfort than the best limousines today, and a service that will be tailored to your needs in every possible way.”

Robotaxi Design

Verne’s robotaxi vehicle will have two seats and an interior concept that “completely redefines” past narratives about interior space. Mudri said that 9 out of 10 rides through ride-hailing services are used by 1 or 2 people:

“Therefore, we can satisfy most of all trips with a two-seater and create unmatched interior space in a compact-sized vehicle. We completely redefined interior space. More space than a Rolls-Royce to relax and spend your time well. 

It will also feature things like music and movies with an ultrawide screen and 17 speakers for enhanced audio.

As for the exterior, it will be sleek, with deeply integrated cameras, radars, short and long-distance-lidars, no windshield wipers, and no side-view mirrors:

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“This makes the aerodynamic performance more efficient and allows for easier cleaning. One typical element of an automobile we kept is the trunk. So you don’t need to worry if you‘re going to the airport with a lot of luggage or just finished a major grocery shopping.”

There’s a long way to go, a lot of competition, and so many variables that come into play with this new project.

I’d love to hear from you! If you have any comments, concerns, or questions, please email me at joey@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @KlenderJoey, or if you have news tips, you can email us at tips@teslarati.com.

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Joey has been a journalist covering electric mobility at TESLARATI since August 2019. In his spare time, Joey is playing golf, watching MMA, or cheering on any of his favorite sports teams, including the Baltimore Ravens and Orioles, Miami Heat, Washington Capitals, and Penn State Nittany Lions. You can get in touch with joey at joey@teslarati.com. He is also on X @KlenderJoey. If you're looking for great Tesla accessories, check out shop.teslarati.com

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Elon Musk

Jim Cramer chimes in on Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s pay package

“Don’t be small-minded: Tesla is about robots, Full Self-Driving, the future. Give him his package.”

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Credit: The Street

Investor and host of Mad Money on MSNBC , Jim Cramer, has chimed in on Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s pay package and whether it should be rewarded to the frontman or not.

Cramer has drawn a lot of attention regarding his sentiments on Tesla, as investors have routinely given him a pretty hard time over what he’s said about the company.

For the past few years, we have covered his comments on Tesla when he has something to say, mostly because his opinion on the stock seems to change pretty frequently; at a minimum, he has something different to say about it every few months.

However, Cramer knows Musk’s value to Tesla, and said on Thursday that he believes the CEO deserves his pay package:

“Don’t be small-minded: Tesla is about robots, Full Self-Driving, the future. Give him his package.”

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Cramer’s comments come just one day after Tesla’s Q3 2025 Earnings Call, where Musk took several opportunities to call out the importance of the pay package and how it could impact the company’s future — with or without him.

Musk said at one point that he would not feel comfortable continuing to develop the company’s massive fleet of Optimus bots without having appropriate control of the company from a voting perspective.

He said he does not want so much power that if he “were to lose his mind,” he could not be removed. However, he does feel he needs to be protected from “activist shareholders,” or “corporate terrorists” like proxy groups Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis:

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“My fundamental concern with regard to how much voting control I have at Tesla is if I go ahead and build this enormous robot army, can I just be ousted at some point in the future? …It’s just, if we build this robot army, do I have at least a strong influence over that robot army, not current control, but a strong influence? That’s what it comes down to in a nutshell. I don’t feel comfortable wielding that robot army if I don’t have at least a strong influence.”

At the end of the call, Musk said:

“Like I said, I just don’t feel comfortable building a robot army here and then being ousted because of some asinine recommendations from ISS and Glass Lewis, who have no freaking clue. I mean, those guys are corporate terrorists.”

Cramer is one of many who realize Musk’s importance to Tesla, and how the company would likely lack the guidance and prowess it does without his planning and drive. However, Tesla shareholders will have the ultimate say on November 6 when they vote on Musk’s compensation plan.

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Tesla is stumped on how to engineer this Optimus part, but they’re close

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla has been stumped on how to engineer one crucial part of the Optimus bot, but CEO Elon Musk says the company is “on the cusp” of achieving something great with the project.

During the Q3 2025 Earnings Call, Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed the company is moving closer to a major breakthrough with the Optimus project, and said they are “on the cusp of something really tremendous.”

However, it seems there is one specific portion of the robot that has truly stumped engineers at the company: the hand, fingers, and forearm.

Musk went into great detail about how incredibly complex and amazing the human hand is, highlighting its dexterity and capability, as its ability to perform a wide variety of tasks is especially impressive:

“I don’t want to downplay the difficulty, but it’s an incredibly difficult thing, especially to create a hand that is as dexterous and capable as the human hand, which is incredible. The human hand is an incredible thing. The more you study the human hand, the more incredible you realize it is, and why you need four fingers and a thumb, why the fingers have certain degrees of freedom, why the various muscles are of different strengths, and fingers are of different lengths. It turns out that those are all there for a reason.”

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It’s been pretty apparent that Tesla has made massive strides in the Optimus project, especially considering it has been able to walk down hills, learn things like Kung Fu, and even perform service tasks like serving food and drinks.

However, a recent look at a Gen 2.5 version of Optimus posted by Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, showed that Tesla was likely using mannequin hands until it developed something that was both useful and aesthetically pleasing:

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Musk continued on the call last night that the Tesla team was confronted with an “incredibly difficult” challenge from an engineering perspective, and the hands and actuators for that specific part were tough to figure out:

“Making the hand and forearm, because most of the actuators, just like the human hand, the muscles that control your hand are actually primarily in your forearm. The Optimus hand and forearm is an incredibly difficult engineering challenge. I’d say it’s more difficult than the rest of the robot from an electromechanical standpoint. The forearm and hand are more difficult than the entire rest of the robot. But really, in order to have a useful generalized robot, you do need an incredible hand.”

The CEO continued that developing a useful and effective robot was “crucial to the future of the company,” and that he works with Optimus’s design team each Friday night.

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Elon Musk sets definitive Tesla Cybercab production date and puts a rumor to rest

“The single biggest expansion in production will be the Cybercab, which starts production in Q2 next year.” -Elon Musk

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Credit: Teslarati

Tesla CEO Elon Musk finally set a definitive date for Tesla Cybercab production and, at the same time, put a substantial rumor regarding the vehicle that has been circulating within the community to rest.

Tesla’s Cybercab was unveiled last October as the company’s two-seater, affordable option that would ultimately be the car used for autonomous travel. It was initially slated for production in late 2025 or early 2026.

Tesla is ramping up its hiring for the Cybercab production team

However, Tesla has finally said it will start production of the Cybercab in Q2 2026, a more concrete date for the company, as it has moved the entire project forward in recent weeks by testing it at the Fremont Test Track and conducting crash safety assessments.

Musk said on the Q3 2025 Earnings Call:

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“The single biggest expansion in production will be the Cybercab, which starts production in Q2 next year. That’s really a vehicle that’s optimized for full autonomy. It, in fact, does not have a steering wheel or pedals and is really an enduring optimization on minimizing cost per mile for fully considered cost per mile of operation.”

In that quote, Musk also put a rumor that has been circulating within the community to rest. Some started to speculate whether Cybercab would be sold with a steering wheel and pedals, as many of the elements of the car seemed to hint toward not being exclusively autonomous, including side mirrors being equipped, among other things.

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It has been interesting to see some consider whether Tesla would sell the vehicle with the elements that would enable human control, especially as there have been a handful of images of the vehicle on company property with a steering wheel spotted.

However, Musk doubled down on the autonomous nature of the Cybercab with this confirmation during the earnings call, something that many investors likely wanted to hear because it was, in a way, a vote of confidence for the company’s path to autonomy.

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