In 2018, Bugatti published a press release bragging about its connected-car system. In it, telemetry engineer Norbert Uffmann said: “In some cases, we have even been able to find customers’ vehicles before the thieves were able to cross the border.” The quote is on Bugatti’s own newsroom.
On October 28, the system got a live test with the boss’s car. It found the car, but only after it had crossed two borders.
What the cops say happened
The most solid account comes from the Styrian state police in Austria. According to the Landespolizeidirektion Steiermark, a sports car worth about €3 million was stolen near Zagreb on Wednesday afternoon. The suspect, a 36-year-old Croatian, drove it through Slovenia and entered Austria at the Spielfeld crossing. Shortly after 7 p.m., Austrian motorway police found the car at a gas station on the A9 Pyhrn motorway near Seiersberg-Pirka, just south of Graz, and arrested him there.
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The release never names the car. It calls it an exclusive sports car from a French manufacturer, named after a racing driver. That description fits a Chiron and not much else. Under questioning by theft investigators from the state criminal police, the man fully confessed. The car has been returned to its owner.
The police release says nothing about a CEO chasing anyone in a Porsche. It credits intensive search work and close cooperation between Slovenian and Austrian authorities.
What Rimac says happened
Mate Rimac told his side in an Instagram video. He said he had routinely left the keys in his cars on the company campus so staff could move or test them, and that nothing had gone wrong in years of doing it. When the Chiron went missing, the team pulled up its telemetry, which showed location, speed and fuel level, and watched it head toward Slovenia. Rimac called police, got into his Porsche 911, and set off after a car that already had about an hour’s lead.
The two accounts don’t conflict. Telemetry says where the car is; only police can legally stop it. A CEO in a 911 adds suspense to the story and not much else.
How the tracking actually works
Bugatti’s release describes the hardware: an aluminum box measuring 140 x 50 x 100 mm, connected to eight vehicle networks, including CAN buses. It records diagnostic data from at least 30 control units, monitors about 10,000 signals across the car, and sends that data in encrypted form, mainly over the mobile phone network.
That last point is the weak spot. Bugatti says the system stays online around the clock only while the car is within mobile network coverage. A thief who parked in an underground garage, a shielded trailer or a cellular dead zone could have broken the trail. This one stopped at a well-covered motorway gas station off Austria’s A9, the kind of place where a 16-cylinder car with an hour’s lead might pull in for fuel. Whether he was refueling isn’t on the record.
Bugatti also says owners agree to telemetry in the purchase contract, and that nearly all of them do. So the tracking that recovered this car is the same tracking that streams a Chiron owner’s location and driving data back to the factory every day.
The legal part
The Graz public prosecutor ordered the suspect reported “auf freiem Fuß,” meaning at liberty. In plain terms, he was arrested and questioned but not held in pretrial custody, and the case has gone to prosecutors in Graz. The police release doesn’t name any charges. Because the car was stolen in Croatia and recovered in Austria, two countries’ authorities have an interest in the case.
Takeaways for people who aren’t Mate Rimac
Keys in the car: Read your policy’s wording on unattended vehicles with keys inside before you copy Rimac’s campus rules. Insurers tend to look hard at that detail when a claim comes in, and “our campus doesn’t have a fence” won’t help yours.
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Tracking isn’t recovery: A factory telematics box and a phone-based tag both report where the car is. Neither stops it. The fast ending here came from police across two countries sharing information quickly, and Austrian officers found the car within hours of the theft.
Don’t do the 911 part: Following a thief across borders with a full tank makes a good story because it ended at a gas station with a confession. Most such chases end with you as a witness to a crash, or a defendant in one. Call the police and let the people with blue lights handle it.
The cell signal matters: If you have a valuable car with connected services, learn what your system can and can’t do when it loses signal. Bugatti says plainly that its own system needs mobile coverage. Your car’s fine print probably has a similar limit, just less prominently stated.
Bugatti’s 2018 press release promised the system could sometimes stop thieves before a border. This time the thief got through two, and the car was still back with its owner the same night. Owners sign away their location and driving data to get that kind of recovery. Would you take that deal if it meant your car was back by bedtime?
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