Now the industry is going to completely
change, there will be completely new
players and the big car companies will
lose their relevance in some cases.
Things are shifting and it opens
opportunities. Yeah at the beginning I
think everybody thought I was crazy like
making electric supercar like why would
you do that nobody wants that and so on.
And even those that were saying like 'an
electric car will never happen in our
portfolio,' they have completely changed
now and everybody's working on it. So I think
this is like we are well beyond that
point where people are like 'okay this is
not going to happen,' I think everybody
knows it's going to happen but what I
think is that people don't realize that
this is just one step. The bigger changes
is that you know drivers become obsolete
and ownership of cars becomes obsolete
and the question there is, what becomes
the sports car companies. So that'll be
interesting to see what happens to those
companies. For me everything started
already in high school, I was the
national champion for electronics
innovation. I had my first patents when I
was 17 years old. But I was always
fascinated with cars, so as soon as I was
18 I bought an old 1984 BMW 3 Series to 
race with it and then the engine blew up.
And being from Croatia I read a lot
about Nikola Tesla who invented the
electric motor and being crazy about
cars and electronics I tried to combine
my two passions and wanted to build a
car that shows that electric cars can be
fast and exciting. So I built this car
into an electric car in my garage and
started to race against gas-powered cars
and was quite successful at that. I broke
five FIA in Guinness World Records with that old BMW and I started my own company.
First wanting to convert other people's
cars, combustion engine cars, into
electric cars but then actually starting
to develop my own car. I started that in
Croatia which didn't have car industry,
or not a single venture capital fund,
no government support, no experience, so
it was really difficult to get started. I
struggled a lot during the first five,
six years to get the company going and
to keep it alive. We were struggling to
pay rent, to pay
salaries it was really tough time, but now we
are 600 people in Automobilie
and over 17 grape in the bike company. We
have raised 150 million euros from
companies like Porsche and Hyundai. We provide
technology to many of the global car
companies developing batteries and power
trains and electronics and infotainment
connectivity to many of the global car
brands, basically helping them to
transition from the combustion engine
cars to hybrids and electric cars and
trying to make them exciting not trying
to make boring slow electric cars. But
actually showing that they can be very
exciting and very fast. And on the other
side we have our own supercars the c2
which is the most powerful car ever
built. It's 1,900 horsepower. Regardless if electric, or
combustion engine, or hybrid it's also
the fast accelerating car less than two
seconds from 0 to 100 km/h or 60 miles per hour
more than 400 kilometers per hour
top speed. And with that we want to show
what is possible and then sell the
technology to other car companies to
help them make their electric cars.
Clarkson was known for not really loving
electric cars. You know Tesla sued Top
Gear at a time when they tested the
first Tesla Roadster. And we were, you
know, not sure if we should do that like
give the car to them, because we know
they were not fond of it, of electric
cars. But in the end Clarkson said it was
the fastest thing he ever saw and the
car was brilliant and it changed his mind
about electric cars. "Oh, oh!""I've never seen anything like that I've never seen
anything move as quickly as that." so in the end it
was super positive for us and just
imagine 10 years ago if somebody told you
that there would be an electric car
that's faster,
accelerating faster than any Ferrari, any
Bugatti, any combustion engine control
you would say 'it's crazy.' But 10 years
later and it's actually the case, the
fastest accelerating cars in the world
are electric. With our own cars we want
to stay low volume because we don't want
to compete with our own customers our
main business is providing them
batteries and power trains and so on. So
with our own cars we will stay at around
100 cars per year, which has to be
profitable business and it's really
important for us because there we can go
wild and free because we are determining
how the car will look like and not the
other car company and then using those
technologies that we developed for the
car to integrate them in other people's
cars. So the concept one was always
limited to 8 cars we, Dell was just our
first attempt when we presented the
first one in Frankfurt 2011 there were
six people, had no idea what we were
doing, no money, no experience so that was,
the extremely limited series, but it was
significant in terms of historic value
being the first true electric hyper car.
The c2 is now our new model which will
be produced in higher volumes so the
co-pay a is 150 units and there will be
more models to follow. But as I said our
main business is then using what is
developed there and sell it to other car
companies. From concept one which is our
first model, until the c2 which is our
current model we learned so many things.
And you know so much experience and the
company has changed so much like we were
basically garage and we developed the
first concept one and showed it in
Frankfurt. And now we are a company that
is working with all the car companies in
the world, and we have gained so much
experience, and we are now hundreds of
people we have hundreds of engineers
working on it. We have for the first time
in our history you know significant
funding available to develop our
products, based on the investors that
invest into the company so it's a whole
different game. The basic idea is the
same like trying to you know increase,
raise the bar as much as possible for
performance of electric cars, but
absolutely nothing is carried over. So we
start again
from a blank sheet, blank sheet of paper,
and trying to develop the car from
scratch from ground up with no
compromises. So we adapted all the
learnings from the concept one but we
didn't take one single boat from the
concept one and put it on the C2.
I'm very driven by the technology,
like I had this vision of the product in
my mind ten years ago and it took us
basically 10 years to develop exactly
that product that I wanted, so people
always ask me like 'how do you get the
idea?'  I think idea is 0.1 percent
execution is absolutely everything.
Execution is super difficult in this
industry, it's very easy to have ideas
but to turn it into reality it's a big
thing. So I want to see that reality but
also you know I'm very proud on the fact
that we have been voted several times as
the best employer in the country. We want
to create great jobs in Croatia, we want
to show that it's possible to do
something like that in this region, like
everybody told me it's impossible to
build a car in Croatia, everybody told me
it's impossible to do whatever I wanted
to do. And I want to prove that it's not
only possible to keep talented Croatians
in Croatia because a lot of them are
leaving, it's also possible to attract
people from all over the world to do you
know globally competitive things in
Croatia. Fundraising was the biggest part
of my work in the last 10 years,
basically. I was always struggling and
especially the beginning it was super hard
to get funding. But in the meantime you
know, we have big names like Porsche or
Volkswagen and Hyundai. Who invested
a lot of money into the company, I have
raised more than hundred fifty million
Euros and that was a super hard process.
And actually this is also something that
I think is going to change and it's
super important to me because you know,
it's basically a closed circle because
it's very complex the fundraising
process is very complex. So it's a closed
circle of people who can attract
investment and who can give investment.
And I think this will democratize like
many things today our democratizing. So
for grey power, by company you're now
doing crowdfunding that's based on an
organization, so it's an equity token
offering where anybody can participate
in the funding round. And I think that's
great because it gives investors, anybody
actually anybody can be an investor
in companies they believe in. And the
companies get access to a much broader
range of investors, anybody can become an
investor. Their aunt can be become an
investor, so it's something that Democratizes I think the
the investment and
it, this will be, I think the model for
fundraising in the future because the
current model of fundraising is so
complex and takes so much time it's so
much effort and drains so much energy
from the company and from the from the
management team, that I think it's a
quite an outdated model. Partnerships are
super important so Porsche and Hyundai
being part of the company is so valuable
to us on so many levels. And those people
came into the company because they
believed in our vision and we only let
those people to be part of our company
that's really are aligned with us in
that regard. And I don't have any problem
giving up ownership of the company for
that so obviously, when you fundraise you
have to give up equity in the company.
And a lot of people ask me like 'okay now
you lost majority shareholding so what's
going to happen,' and as long as I'm the
best person to run the company you know
I will do that, but if there's somebody
else who is better, the shareholders
believe that somebody else can run a
company better, it's in the  company's
best interest that, you know, the best
person runs the company. If that's not me
anymore then you know I'll step out, but I
think, that  you know I have full
support of the shareholders and that we
common, have a common goal, and that it's
not important who owns how many shares.
Like we are very aligned on what the
company needs to do, what are our goals,
what are the ways to get there. And I
think the people are too much focused on
like the shareholding structure of the
company, entrepreneurs are focused on
that because in the end I think what is
good for the company should be good for
everybody.
And usually it's good for the company to
raise more money and to have more good
partners on board and then everybody
gets diluted including the founders,
which I don't think is a bad thing.
One of the things I don't like about
this industry it's very secretive, so we
already open as a company so anybody can
come to our facility and have a tour
of the company see everything that we
are doing, except those things that we do
for other car companies. And you can even
see on YouTube have a virtual tour of
the factory where I take you around like
in one hour you see absolutely
everything we are doing, and we have
always been this open. But what we do for
our car companies is usually under
non-disclosure agreements and we cannot
talk too much about it, obviously we are
working with Porsche, Hyundai who  our
shareholders, there's public projects
with Aston Martin the Kunny exec.
Wait I have to think who I can say, there
is many basically all the other European
car manufactures, and also some overseas
that we work with. And usually its
projects in the range of high
performance electric cars or hybrid cars
where we are together developing the
vehicle in terms of, they develop the you
know, the chassis and the classical vehicle
things and we developed the
electrification part, the battery the
powertrain the electronics and so on. I
think everybody has their own way. I
really respect Elon like, I don't like
this when people say I'm, I don't know,
Elon Musk of Europe or whatever. I never
met the guy but I have huge respect for
him, I think people don't appreciate what
he's doing for Humanity. I think you know
sending reusable rockets into space,
wanting to conquer Mars, and so on
it's I mean it's what inspires
generations, it's what inspired many
people 40, 50 years ago when we meant,
when we went for the moon and nothing
like that has been going on for years.
And he's not doing that with you know
somebody else's money it's I mean, it's
not the government it's a private
enterprise doing that, so I have huge
respect for Elon. But you know what we
are doing is on a completely different,
scale we are a much smaller company,
obviously the electric cars are
connecting us but what he is doing and
what we are doing is on a totally
different scale and totally different
impact, we are much smaller company Tesla
is. Now I think over 40,000, 50,000
employees we are just 600, 700 employees.
And of course trying to do our part of
the transition to different kind of
mobility to different kind of energy
usage from fossil fuels to electric and
so on helping other car companies to go
electric. But what Elon has done I think
he has
the biggest impact of any, one of the
biggest impacts, of any personal life
positive impacts. There are some with
interesting hairstyles that maybe have a
bigger impact, but that's not so positive
the industry is changing like never
before. I mean we are active in the
supercar and high-performance car
business but the whole industry is going
through a cycle and the cycle is just
starting, that's more disruptive than the
last 50, 60 years. So everything is going
to change about the industry, the way
people do business, the way who are the
players, if it's the car companies are
probably going to lose influence and
it's going to be more and more on the
tech companies and so on. So
electrification is just one aspect of it
and I think people are focused too much
on it and think they are going through a
big transition. But if you look at it
actually nothing has really changed
you have the suppliers producing parts,
100 years ago it was the same thing,
suppliers producing parts selling the
parts to the car companies, the car
companies assemble them into a car and
then sell the car to the dealer the
dealer sells it to the end customer
and user and the user goes to the gas
station to fill it up or to service it.
Now it's the same thing you just have a
supplier which is not making a
carburetor or an exhaust pipe instead
the supplier is making an inverter or a
battery pack, again the car company takes
the parts, assembles them into a car, by
the way 75% of the other value is made by
suppliers not by car manufactures, sells
the car to a dealer, dealer sells it to
the end customer. The only thing that
changes all of that value chain is the
gas station is becoming a charging
station and that's very undisruptive for
anybody in this value chain: the customer
and the car companies and the suppliers.
But everybody feels it's a huge
transition but this whole thing is going
to completely change when people don't
own cars they don't operate cars the
cars will be shared, autonomous, electric
connected and that's going to completely
turn this industry on its head. And it
will have an impact on everybody. It will
have an impact on the end users, it will
have an impact on the cities, the real
estate market.
Because you will care less about your
commute, because you will use your time
while you commute differently, your
commute will be much cheaper because
you take the driver which is a big part
of the cost out of the loop. So in my
opinion what's going to happen in the
next decade or two is going to be a
transition for people it's going to be a
change for the society like it was in
the last couple of decades with phones
and internet. That's the way it usually
goes for new technology starts expensive
and for a very limited group of people
and it trickles down to a wider audience
and wider market share. And that's what's
going on with electric cars right now,
where you know, we make a 2 million euros
supercar but this technology ends up in
many other car companies and in many
other cars currently still on the high
end but of course obviously working with
Hyundai and some other companies they
are more mass market oriented. And this
will eventually trickle down to a higher
volume, but I think the real big change
to you know, when it's going to really
pick up because currently electric cars
are less than 2% of global market share,
together with hybrids actually, I think
that electrification will be a
consequence of autonomous driving. So
there will be autonomous riding first,
because it's the much bigger change much
bigger disruption, and  electrification is a
consequence of that, why? Because people
are not data driven, they are driven by
emotions so if you, if I ask you how much
range your car needs to have you will
answer, 'hmm 500 miles because I need to
go once per year to my grandma's and I
need 500 miles to get there. But in
reality you know your commute is 20
miles, 30 miles on average and companies
that operate big fleets, in the future of
autonomous cars, don't know exactly how
your commute looks like and they
know the data of you know how many trips
they have there that are five miles, how many
trips they have that are 20 miles how
many trips they have there are more than
that and they will know exactly which
kind of batteries they need, how the
weakest will be operated, how they will
be run, when they need to go charging, you
know. How big of a battery they need to
have and how many of those cars will
certain type of battery so then the
question of range falls you know
somewhere completely  differently and it's
quote a totally different parting where
everything is written by data. And as
long as people are making the emotional
decision to buy cars, they will do
unreasonable choices in terms of battery
size which results in high cost, so this
will completely change with autonomous
vehicles and kind of the decision of the
car itself being taken away from the
person and giving to an operator who
will operate the fleets of autonomous
cars. Vehicle design is definitely going
to change completely, when you don't have
ownership of the car and you don't have
operation of the car, you don't have a
person driving the car it's going to
completely look different. It's going to
be different and nobody knows really
what it will be like. Some people are
working on things that look like little
trains on rubber wheels, that's the right
direction I'm not really sure I have
some ideas on my own which I won't share
now, but you know definitely it's going
to be completely different. And you know
just the way the car will be used,
because currently the average car is
being used for 3% of the time it's
sitting around doing nothing for 97% of
the time which is totally insane it's
such a waste of resources not just for
the car but also for the real estate,
where you keep the car parking spots and
stuff like that and when your car is
being shared by many people and being
operated by a fleet operator,
I'd say Uber it's being used by you know
60, 70 percent of the time when you don't
have a driver who gets tired, but you
have an autonomous car. And just imagine
how different the car needs to be
because of that, like being used 3% of
the time or 70% of the time that's a
huge difference and being used by one
person a day and then being used by 50
people a day. So cars are going to change
in many many ways and the question is
who produces those cars in the end. Do
you even care about the badge? Do you
even care about the performance?  About
the battery size, about the brakes, you
don't care about that you don't care about
that in your train today, and you will
also not care about that in your future
autonomous driving pod and that comes
from a car guy.
I'm car guy, making electric supercars
but you know in reality, I kind of have
this crazy saying that autonomous cars
will enable capitalism to work further.
Because in the last decades you know in
capitalism everything has to increase
right and in Western countries the
population is not increasing anymore, so
we have to be more productive. In the
last decades we were more productive
through you know, emails and then through
phone, you could work for a longer time
and you could be more efficient and so
on and now with autonomous cars you will
get billions of hours of productivity of
people that are now sitting behind
steering wheels not being productive. Just imagine that as far as I know 8% of
the u.s. GDP is impacted by traffic jams.
Because people sit 50 billion hours a
year in traffic jams behind the steering
wheel. So all of a sudden you have this
time available for other things of course
lots of people will watch you know cat
videos on YouTube. But many people will
also work so that's going to be a big
productivity shift also and will change
many things. I think that the big changes
never happened you know in the way you
see it in sci-fi movies where you know
all of a sudden you have some
revolutionary I don't know floating
buildings or flying cars or whatever. I
mean there will be different solutions
to the problem, but I think we need to
utilize what we have the best way. So if
you look at roads today you have a
traffic jam and when you sit in the
traffic jam it looks like there are cars
everywhere around you but go to I mean
we are now in a skyscraper and look at
the roads and from above most of the
roads are empty but still there are
traffic jams, because they are not
utilized in the right way because people
cannot communicate with thousand people
at the same time. When you have an
autonomous car it will know exactly
where every car is and where it's going
and what it's what it wants to do, so you
can utilize the existing infrastructure
so much better and I think that's much
cheaper than building new infrastructure
on the ground.Of course that also has
its merits or you know flying over the
the traffic jams and so on everything
everything has some kind of let's say
purpose, and it makes sense in a way. But
I think the first step is to utilize
what we have at the moment the
infrastructure does need to change but
once we have cars that can speak to each
other and like be part of a central
nervous system that's going to utilize
what we have much better and be much
more safer. Ok we are small manufacturers
so we don't have a global service
network we do have dealers and services
around the world but we we are not like
a big car company. So all our cars from
the first one were connected to the
Internet we can see all the data about
the car of course minimized we don't
know who the owner is and we can see if
there is a problem with the battery cell
or with the motor or something like that,
which helps us to even see a problem
before the customer can see it maybe we
can fix it with an over-the-air update
or if it's not fixable with the
over-the-air update we warn the owner
and tell them look you'll have a problem
please go to the service and the service
already knows which part the they need
to exchange. So this really enables us as
a small company to basically not have
the big investment in global service
network because our global service
network is the data being sent from the
car and we utilize that of course to
understand better how the cars are being
used, which functions are important for
the driver, which vision functions are not
important you know, maybe. For me it's
kind of crazy that car companies today
they develop they put so much money
money into the development of the car in
different functions of the infotainment
and so on. And I tell you they have no
idea how the customers are really using
the car, if they really need those
functions if they want those functions
if it's just too complicated in them
they build it give it to the dealer and
they are done with the car and for us
it's really important to have that
feedback loop to know this exactly how
the car is being used and all of the
details of which functions are important
to the user because the user has a
different perspective. However; smart we
think we are or however well we know our
product the user is
looking at it from a different
perspective. one thing is for sure all
cars will be connected and you know
currently that means that you can turn
on your air conditioning or know when
your car needs to service wherever you
are you can see if your car is being
charged and so on. But that's just the
step currently where the business model
didn't really change where you still own
your own car and in the future you know
when cars become autonomous you will
have to have some kind of a way to
interact with the car from a operator
standpoint if there is a problem. So
you'll have remote control cars when the
autonomous driving system cannot handle it's situation, they'll be a person maybe 
sitting on another continent connected
at 5g to the car driving you in the car
to avoid a dangerous situation or a
situation that the autonomous driving
system says okay I cannot cope with the
system with this situation. So every car
needs to be connected and there will be
a lot of data traffic being generated
from the cars and just imagine all of
the cars on the road, mapping the world
in real-time, all the time, everywhere
they pass so you have a real-time map of
the world, all the time, everywhere where you have
vehicles, everywhere where you have
traffic and it will be all fed to a
central system which is not being
updated like now Google Maps is updating
their Maps like every few months, maybe
with a new aerial footage, but then with
autonomous cars this will happen
immediately because the autonomous cars
need to know their environment they have
cameras lidar so laser scanners,
basically radars, ultrasonic sensors, and
that's a wealth of information wealth of
data and I think we don't even know
currently what we can do with this data.
We are trying to be both the car company
and the tech company in cars we want to
stay super low volume and just to show
what is possible just do the best and be
the best in high performance and so on.
And on the other side with the tech
really scale it and be a big supplier to
the car companies being enabled for them
to go electric and build exciting
electric cars. So the bike company
started basically as a side project
thing that's where we wanted just to apply
what we have done for cars onto two
wheels and make something cool and crazy.
And it was really you know very a fun
product, the first bike we did it was
super fun to ride in the city, in the
woods, and so on but the market is very
limited so we then started to develop a
bike which is not about the performance
of about going fast but about being
smart. So it has cameras tests it has
used it is always connected to the
Internet, so this enables you to do
things that that we don't even know
currently. Like for example, you can
compete, you can be here in London and I
can be in Croatia and we can compete in
real time against each other. I can see
your heart rate you can see my heart
rate I know exactly how much effort you
are putting in because we have a sensor
on the pedals and we know how much
energy is being contributed from the
battery pack so we can compete in you
know human energy versus electric energy
and do that on a you know
person-to-person basis or on a crowd
basis. You know do competitions like who
has made the highest jump or something
like that and but the next step of that,
is the asset itself. So again
bikes are being used for very little
time and we want like, our vision for the
futures like zero ownership, zero
emissions, and zero accidents. So with
this connectivity and the blockchain
technology in the back where you can
basically utilize the asset in a
different way and pay for different
things,
either you know person to person or
person to machine or machine to machine
actually this enables a whole new array
of possibilities where you can own your
bike but you can you know have it make
money for you in exactly the right way,
you want it, like with exactly the kind
of people you want to use your bike,
while you are not using it. So that's the
kind of things that we are doing. We
started with making totally crazy bikes
just you know for fun and you know going
to the woods and through the mud and
stuff like that, but now shifting to smart
and connected bikes and opening up
totally new possibilities for bike usage.
It's a similar business model like in
the car company, so our bikes are
basically a showcase for the
technologies that we develop, that we are
now trying to get into the market for
other bike companies and other
usages totally other vehicles can use
this technologies. So we want to produce
small numbers like a few thousand units
per year of our own bikes. But the
mission of the company is to develop
this platform where other vehicle
manufactures and other owners of
vehicles can connect to and utilize
their assets, utilize their vehicles in a
different way.
We are already today in nine locations
and we are expanding our footprint,
obviously we need to be close to our
customers in some cases because we are
producing big parts or maybe it doesn't
make sense to produce all of them in
Croatia, if somebody is more further away
assembling the car it makes sense to
build factories there. But also we are
looking at different locations for
engineering, so we are also considering
the UK and some other locations to
expand our engineering footprint because
we are growing so fast and it's
difficult to do that just in Croatia. For
us, you know what's interesting in the UK
is the talent pool and Brexit it or not
won't have a big impact for us, but I do
believe that it will have a huge impact
on other companies and in the UK. So we
had a presale of, we had first 500 slots in
presale open and it's in four days it
went, it was 1.4 million euros collected,
And we are now styling the public sale
in a couple of weeks. This is one of the
first or even the first real like
company raising it through this equity
token offering, that that's how it's
called, like and the reason I was really
doing that is, you know, I raised a lot of
more money before. So I raised 150
million euros in the past from big
institutional investors. And this is just
five million euros in great, but I really
wanted to break this, you know,  this
vicious circle of going in circles with
you know teams of lawyers, of big you
know, due diligence companies, like you
know the big four, and you know going
through this whole thing with the big
investors and the power is really their
hands in this,
in this way. And I mean we have great
investors and great partners, but when
you want to do the next round you have
to do this all over again. And I thought
with an equity token offering you can
really open it up, make it super
transparent, anybody can ask questions,
participate, look at all the materials.
And it really feels like this is the way
it should be done, like you know anybody
who is interested can participate, be
part of it, be a shareholder just like
the big guys. And this opens I think both
the way for the company and for normal
people who want to be part of whatever
they, they are interested in. It's, it's
totally not an ICL because it's an it
gives actually equity in the company so
the, the token doesn't have any utility
it's not the value is not in the in the
currency the value is in getting equity
of the company. It's just like it's an
equity share based on watching. Well it
was something new for everybody involved
so our current shareholders of course
had to be convinced. But once we explain
the model behind it and it's totally by
the books in terms of it respects all
the regulations, it's really, we have
really paid a lot of attention to that,
and everybody was on board in the end. So
we'll see if this is successful for sure.
We'll use it for future
fundraisers as well. I think in many
cases we'll be in the background where
our products are being sold by others
like car companies where you don't
really know that it's us inside. But
already, you know, for car components
it's very unusual that the car
manufacturers kind of show it or brag
about that there is something inside so
it's already a little bit like Intel
insight. When we are in a car,
usually the car manufacturers like to
talk about it and show it so it's a
little bit already revealed what's inside. So
I hope we can really add value to to these
cars and
that, when you know that we are part of
the car that it has some added value. For
us the big challenge now is to
transition from prototyping with low-volume
manufacturing to high-volume
manufacturing where we want to supply
you know thousands, tens of thousands,
hundreds of thousands of batteries and
power trains to big car companies to
help them make their cars. We are
launching our new car on the market
doing the global homologation, crashing a
lot of cars against the wall which
really hurts to watch it, you can see it on
YouTube. And with the bike company to
scale up and to make our platform really
used by many people, so that we have this
you know community contributing the data
and competing against each other sharing
the information and so on. So it's really
maturing the companies you know. We used to be a really small operation startup,
then, you know, we were basically going
through a phase of truth of concept
where we had our customers and revenues
and production, and scaling up. And now
the next stage is really becoming a
mature t1 supplier for big car companies
and on the bike side similar and
becoming a profitable long-term scalable
business. I'm a car guy myself, you know
if I one day cash out and have a bunch
of money, I would buy a lot of combustion
cars as well for my collection because I
just love cars. But, so first step towards
electrification it would be I think a
good one. The cars can become more
exciting not boring and with
electrification you can do things to
make ours actually better and you can
see that informa one the cars are not
getting slower because of hybridization.
And you can see that with you know our
cars, but also some others that electric
cars can really be fast and exciting. Like for example we have four electric
motors, so you can use each motor to
control one wheel separately and with
that you can do things that are not
imaginable with the traditional
powertrain and this can be really
exciting for people that love cars.
Long-term driving cars should be a hobby
just like you know probably your
grandparents and my grandparents were
riding horses and today like we don't
ride horses or very few people still
have them as a means of fun. And why, why
will that happen with cars
I really believe that humanity goes for
those things that make sense that are
like measurable better and if you look
at 1.3 million people dying every year
on the roads. If you look at the impact
it has on economies based on the traffic
jams and time lost and on the injuries
and deaths and health cost and so on.
It's so big of a negative impact to the
society that people drive and I think
it's just such a huge you know benefit
that can be gathered if people stop
driving, with machines driving if we can
make them good at doing that, that in the
long term it just doesn't make sense
that we drive. You know it's all fun and
games until somebody gets hurt or you
lose somebody you, you are close with. So
in the long term I don't think it makes
sense to own and drive cars, it will make
sense for a few people who will still
care about it and that will be less and
less people to have fun on the racetrack
and so on. But I mean driving in London is
not fun for a long time and you know
it's more people moving to urban areas
this will become you know more and more
the case in more and more places of the
world. So this will never totally happen.
I think it's inevitable because it's it
just makes sense maybe I'm naive, not
always the most let's say sensible
solution wins but in this case I think
the upsides of the new paradigm of
mobility is so huge that it will just
happen. You know car people will be
horrified by it, they will say 'ah I want
to have my own car' and so on. But let's
look into the future when you are
standing in front of the choice of
either investing a huge chunk of your
money and buying a you know hunk of
metal and plastic for 30, 40, 50 thousand
euros whatever, or you have the
convenient option of you know paying as
you go. The car picks you up in a few
minutes it's a nice environment where
you want to
your time with and you spent a few euros
per day on your transport. When you take
the driver out of the loop, transport can
be much cheaper, so what will you do?  And you can use this time to do other things,
instead of sitting behind the steering
wheel and not doing anything else. So I
think the choice for the West majority
of people will be the obvious one, there
will be people who will still want to
own their cars and drive their cars, and
I'm happy for that because that's our
business.
But long-term I think twenty years down
the road it will be totally changed and
people will not own and drive their cars
anymore. And for car companies that is a
big disruption, so will the car companies
operate those fleets, I don't think so. I
think it will be more tech companies. So
how will car manufacturers do? Will they
just be the Foxconn of those operators? 
Who will make the cars, who will own them?
Will the operators own the cars so they will be fine with
institutions owning the cars? Who will
insure the cars, who will be the AI provider?
This is all new questions and this is
also a great new opportunity for many
people that are coming to the industry.
So me starting 10 years ago in Croatia,  I
couldn't compete building better
headlights because that's what the big
car companies and the suppliers are
doing for a hundred years, perfecting
their headlights. But I could start a
company that can be competitive and
better than them in some areas of the
battery of the powertrain and so on.
There was a window of opportunity for
that, now the industry is going to
completely change, there will be
completely new players and the big car
companies will lose their relevance in
some cases. So this opens the window
again for small companies and for
newcomers that were totally not on the
radar of the car industry and maybe you
wouldn't even connect them to the
car industry. So maybe a foundry will be
much less important for the car industry
or for mobility industry in the future
than an internet provider. So things are
shifting and it opens opportunities. Now
mobility in the future is not going to
be one solution, there will not be one
syllable
that will cover all the needs. So I think
that will be an interaction
of multiple modes of transport or multimodal transportation, where you combine
you know the scooter, the bike, the car,
subway, bus whatever to achieve your most
optimal routes. And that's why we also
integrate what we do for the future with
our bikes with drape and the whole part
that we are developing there with a
platform that's based on blockchain
technology and so on. with the cars and
trying to integrate that into one system
or future mobility. And that's what we
are also doing this fundraising for this
equity token offering where we want
people who believe in this who share
this vision of us where anybody can
participate you know. In the past we had
huge companies investing in us like
Hyundai and Porsche and so on and now
basically anybody who shares this
passion with us can invest you know 100
euros, 500 euros, a thousand euros. So this
opens up a whole new possibility for
companies and for, for individuals to, to
get access to investments or to
investors, that were not possible before.
So from this very closed circle of
people who were investing in tech
companies before, because the process is
just so complex and it takes a lot of
time, this is now opening up with the
possibilities of blockchain technology. I
think sports car companies will be still
relevant for next few years and maybe a
decade or two. Beyond that they will for
sure always be clientele who wants you
know the racehorses on closed courses
and so on if that's enough to keep all
the sports car companies alive of the
future we'll see.
