Rimac, the small but successful electric car company from Croatia, has just made a major new hiring in the form of Chris Porritt, who becomes chief technology officer.

From the UK, Porritt joins Rimac after a four-year stint at Apple's Special Projects Group, which is understood to have been involved in its Project Titan electric and autonomous vehicle efforts.

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Before that, Porritt was vice president of engineering at Tesla between 2013 and 2015, having previously worked at Aston Martin and Land Rover.

Porritt's experience from working at Tesla and Apple will no doubt be hugely valuable to Rimac, which is soon to reveal the production version of its second car, a limited-run, $2M electric hypercar currently known as the C_Two.

As well being one of the quicker cars ever made for the public road, Rimac says the C_Two will use autonomous driving technology to help teach its owner how to take the perfect lines around a race track.

But beyond ultra-exclusive hypercars, Rimac has quickly proved itself as the go-to EV company for some of the industry's biggest players. Porsche owns a 15.5 percent stake in the business, Hyundai has invested €80M ($91M), and other partners include Aston Martin, Swedish supercar company Koenigsegg, and fellow EV supercar maker Automobili Pininfarina.

The C_Two concept will soon be revealed in production-ready formRimac Automobili

Headed by company founder Mate Rimac, 32, Rimac Automobili was founded in 2009 after Mate replaced the broken engine of his BMW with a homemade electric motor and battery pack. Since then, the company has grown to over 300 employees, produced two models of car, and supplies EV components to Aston Martin, Jaguar and other industry heavyweights.

Rimac makes many of its components – and writes its own code – in-house, as well as developing and producing electric drivetrains and battery systems.

Porritt's appointment will bring a wealth of knowledge and auto industry experience to Rimac, and comes at a crucial time as the production version of the C_Two concept, intended to be revealed at the cancelled Geneva motor show in March, will arrive imminently. Production of the 150 examples of C-Two begins in 2021.

Porritt said: "The opportunity to join Rimac Automobili is an engineer's dream. Since nearly every key component is designed and built in-house by Rimac, this gives us the freedom to create something that's unlike anything else that has been done before in the hypercar world."