French marque Bugatti is perhaps most well known for their bonkers hypercars powered by its crazy 8.0-litre quad-turbocharged W16 engines. But ever since the company was bought over by Croatian EV maker Rimac, rumours have pointed at the end of Bugatti’s fossil-fuel supremacy.
But as it turns out, these rumours were pretty off the mark, at least for now. In a video announcing the company’s 2021 sales results, CEO of the newly established Bugatti Rimac company Mate Rimac re-confirmed that their next model will still come with a internal combustion engine.
In fact, Rimac says that he has been personally “pushing also for a combustion engine” in their next hypercar, which will feature a host of features that “have not yet been seen on any other car”.
“I don’t want to talk too much about future plans yet. But I can tell you, you will be astonished… There is a future for combustion engines in Bugatti.”
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Timing wise, the statements does coincide with what Rimac told real estate mogul and Bugatti collector Manny Khoshbin back at the Monterey Car Week last year, where he said they are working on “something crazy”, built “from the ground up” to replace the Chiron, and will be unveiled sometime in 2024.
Having a combustion engine, though, doesn’t mean that Bugatti is eschewing electrification completely. Rimac was reportedly saying earlier in June 2021 that Bugatti’s next combustion vehicles will be “very heavily hybridised”.
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If Bugatti does indeed go for the hybrid route, then it’ll be pretty similar to what Lamborghini is doing to keep the V12 engine alive. With emission regulations getting stricter by the day, it probably is just a matter of time before big brawny combustion engines cease to exist anymore – so we’ll accept anything we can to save them, at least for a little while more.
On top of that, just imagine how crazy it can be when you pair extra electric motors to the already-bonkers W16s – the Chiron without electric propulsion already makes up to 1,600 hp and 1,600 Nm!
