When you imagine a typical vehicle manufacturing plant, you surely envision a large facility with a long moving factory conveyor belt where gigantic robotic machines and employees in work uniforms alternate. The vehicle was likely assembled by a robot, piecing together metal parts like a game of ‘Legos’, and then humans took over. They would equip the car with details, from installing windows and seats to setting up the dashboard. Once everything is in place, the vehicle exits the plant to the factory parking lot, from where it goes onto a truck and straight to the showroom. And that’s it.
For most people, this is some imagined version of the automotive industry – robotic serial production of a large number of vehicles. We do not have such an automotive industry in Croatia, nor have we ever had one. Such plants are a common sight across Europe, from neighboring Slovenia to Serbia, and even to other Eastern European countries like Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Romania, which have attracted quite a few investors from Western European industry over the past twenty years due to low wages and small taxes.
But such plants are also plentiful in Germany, France, Spain, and Sweden, which have always had their automotive industry. The facilities from those countries have not left. In such automotive industrial plants, which are often larger than some neighborhoods in Zagreb, thousands of people work, and the multiplicative effects tell a story of their own. Croatia not only has not had its automotive industry, but it has also lacked the fortune or skill to attract such investors. Either we had high taxes or excessively high wages or no incentives at all, so we settled for companies that did auxiliary work for the automotive industry, such as producing glass, rubber, plastic, and parts for production lines.
We have and do not have an automotive industry
However, we now have a new opportunity. The fact is that various investors are looking for new locations for their electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing plants. It’s not just Tesla in this business; EVs are produced by the Chinese, Indians, Vietnamese, Poles, almost every country has its prototype of some electric vehicle, including Croatia. We have Rimac’s Nevera. It may not be produced in large series, but it is ‘ours’. However, in this context, it is important to mention that EV manufacturing plants are not large industrial plants and do not need to be. They are mostly small, makeshift vehicles that can be assembled in a mini-plant, and Croatia could attract investors who want to be ‘closer’ to European customers, who, due to the EU’s green policy, must think about abandoning fossil fuel vehicles.
And now we have some experience. Of course, it would be pretentious to say that Croatia is today a country of the automotive industry compared to other countries whose industry, and ultimately GDP, rests on the production and export of vehicles, but it would not be entirely correct to say that it does not have its automotive industry. Perhaps we do not have the right to say that we are a country of a fully developed traditional automotive industry, but we are not exactly nobody and nothing. And it is neither pretentious nor wrong to say that Mate Rimac has done the most for the Croatian automotive industry in terms of global recognition.
We all know his story; we have repeated it many times. We know everything about Nevera, we know about Hyundai and Kia, we know about the acquisition of Bugatti, we know everything about the investors who have invested in his companies, but we do not know if and when the serial production of his vehicles will begin in Croatia. However, it is also undeniable that Rimac has positioned Croatia on the map as a country, if not of traditional automotive industry, then of technological automotive industry and an industry capable of developing its own modern electric hypercar for which the production of 150 units has been announced.
Despite efforts to hear whether he believes he had a hand in that positioning and in redirecting the global investment public’s attention to the Croatian automotive industry, we did not receive responses to inquiries from Rimac Automobili.
Ahead of its time
However, even before Nevera, Croatia had its first EV. It is a car called XD, produced in Dok-ing, which was supposed to enter serial production, but that did not happen. The owner of the company, Vjekoslav Majetić, recently pointed out that he himself halted that project, concluding that the company was a bit ahead of its time with that vehicle.
– When I was developing it, there were no EU funds, and we spent a lot of money on it. We made four vehicles: two were registered in Dok-ing, one is out of use and we are modifying it because the batteries have failed after twelve years, one is in the Technical Museum as the first Croatian electric car, and one is at FER. I am very proud of that product. My plan was for Croatia to get a small family city e-car; unfortunately, I could not finance it. To avoid jeopardizing the company’s operations, I had to give up – Majetić recently recounted.
Despite this, we could soon, according to all indications, get the first serial production of EVs in Croatia, and that in Novska. Although we sent an official inquiry to the company Wawa, which announced the investment, and repeated questions on social and business networks, no response has arrived, but we have no reason, for now, to doubt the investment as it has been announced on the official pages of the City of Novska, and the news has been reported by local portals with the headline that EVs will be produced in that city.
No one has denied this so far, but the description of the company’s profile states that Wawa is a group of domestic Croatian companies that designs, develops, and implements sustainable ecological solutions in the fields of transport, informatics, and ecology. It has also equipped the Lonjsko Polje Nature Park with electric vehicles for tourist purposes. What kind of electric cars will be produced in Novska is unknown, but the company director, Slaven Vrhovski, emphasized at the contract signing that they will unify the production of parts, upgrades, assembly, maintenance, and service, and configuration in one place.
