Rijeka’s ‘Rimac for Motorcycles’ Produced the Most Sought-After Inverter for Electric Vehicles

Successful businesses often arise from the most unusual motives, as evidenced by the example of the Rijeka company Torp. The first Croatian electric off-road motorcycles were produced out of curiosity, and due to the fact that their vehicles run on 'electricity', many already call them the 'Rimac for motorcycles'.

– The idea to develop our own off-road electric motorcycle stemmed from pure curiosity about how to create an electric vehicle that would simultaneously be fast, agile, durable, and, on top of all that, attractive in appearance. We first tried to assemble a drive system for the motorcycle using purchased parts, but in the end, it turned out that such a solution was expensive and inefficient.

Drive components from different manufacturers were not compatible, so we wasted a lot of time adapting them and ultimately concluded that we would only achieve our goal by developing our own drive components. Thus, we developed our own battery, battery management system (BMS), and inverter for the Torp Bike, and we housed everything in a lightweight frame that we also designed ourselves. The Torp Bike, with its total weight of thirty kilograms (of which nine kilograms is the battery) and fifteen kilowatts of power, combines agility and speed, making it interesting for both trick performers and enduro racers.

During the development of the Torp Bike, Damir Šarčević and I learned a lot of new things that we now apply to our new products, for which we have engaged experts of various profiles in our team over the years – describes Teo Žikić, who, along with the aforementioned Damir Šarčević, is the owner of the company.

They produced the first few motorcycles in 2019, so-called showcase-examples, through which they present the rest of the technology they produce in an attractive way, as well as the potential of the entire company.

Examples for Presentation

The design was credited to Serđo Miletić, and they are not only easier to handle but also to perform various tricks. The advantage of their motorcycles over the competition lies in the combination of power and low weight, making them more agile and allowing for greater range. All these characteristics are now applied to their entire product range.

The connection with Mate Rimac and his Rimac Automobili is not only in electricity as 'fuel', but Žikić was employed at that company before starting his own business, most recently as part of the team responsible for developing the battery for the hypercar Concept One. In addition to experience, this also brought him good references.

– We had several inquiries for which we received recommendations directly from Rimac Automobili. Some of our business collaborations were realized because of those recommendations. We just completed one such large project, and I am sure it will not be the last. We collaborate with Rimac in various ways and nurture good business relationships. Although the recommendation from Rimac Automobili means a lot to us, we continue to position ourselves independently in the market niche of electromobility – explains Žikić.

Shifting Focus

He entered the whole story alone, after which Šarčević joined him as a co-founder, who already had a stake in the company Terminalworks, dedicated to developing software solutions for printers and scanners. Today, he is more engaged in Torp, although Terminalworks generates ten times higher revenues. In six years of existence, Torp, which took its name from the well-known Rijeka factory Torpedo, has grown to eight employees and five external collaborators.

In the beginning, and a similar situation exists today, the biggest problem they faced was finding labor. Given that there are not many engineers who have tried working with electric vehicles, they invest a lot of time and energy in each employee to help them develop their full potential in Torp and thus contribute to the development of their products.

At one point, they decided to shift the focus of their business to the production of inverters and drive parts for electric motorcycles.

– As appealing as the production of electric motorcycles sounds, we realized that developing individual drive components for electric vehicles is a much greater challenge. We discovered a huge market potential in the business-to-business segment, as well as in selling products to end users. Developing the most efficient drive components also represents a personal challenge for us. It is interesting for us to 'brainstorm' how to create a product that is as small and as powerful as possible, which is also easy to use. I believe that with our inverter, which we launched on the international market this year, we have achieved all the mentioned characteristics – believes our interlocutor.

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