Speed for speed’s sake seemingly serves little purpose. The automotive world’s fascination with 0-60mph times is far too often little more than a pissing contest, with genuine automotive innovation being served up as fortunate a byproduct of such willy waving.
You might think that Rimac’s new electric hypercar falls into this category, a rare entrant into the canon of cars that can propel you from standstill to 60 miles an hour in under two seconds. It joins the Porsche 911 Turbo S and Tesla's Roadster in this rarified group.
The numbers for Rimac’s Nevera are, admittedly, frankly staggering. Formerly known as the C_Two, the car’s structure houses a 6,960-cell, 120kWh lithium/manganese/nickel battery (designed from scratch by Rimac) powering four permanent magnet motors driving each wheel individually. The 340-mile WLTP range can be topped up in 19 minutes from zero to 80 per cent when hooked up to a 500kW charger. Not only does this set-up afford the Nevera the most advanced torque vectoring ever achieved, it means the car has a mind-boggling output of 1.4 megawatts. That’s 1,914bhp and 1,740lb ft of torque.
Top speed is a theoretical 258mph. Zero to 60mph is dealt with in 1.85 seconds, 100mph in 4.3 seconds, the quarter mile from a standing start dispatched in a mere 8.6 seconds. Incidentally, the Nevera reaches 186mph in 9.3 seconds. Why is this worth mentioning? It means it is faster than an F1 car, yet it weighs 2,150kg compared to the 752kg regulation minimum weight of a Formula 1 racer.
As I sat on the Zadar airport runway in Croatia, preparing to launch myself at these ridiculous speeds towards the white stripes in the far distance, I wondered how such acceleration might feel. The main advice I was given was to be sure to place my head on the headrest so I wouldn’t strain my neck muscles fighting to keep my head in place as the Nevera shot down the course ahead.
After setting off, then main things I can recall after the punishing initial g-forces is the odd sensation of the featureless outside view – no trees, side roads or other cars to give any frame of reference as to how fast I was going – bending around the windscreen. It looked like the dolly zoom shot made famous in Vertigo and Jaws where an in-camera effect undermines normal visual perception resulting in the background warping impossibly.
I physically couldn’t tear my eyes away from this disorientating scene to note that I had topped out at just shy of 160mph in less time than it took to write this sentence. This must be what going into hyperspace feels like as light bends around the cockpit. Seemingly before I could draw breath I had hit the point at which you either lift off the throttle before tarmac ends or resign yourself to taking a £1.7 million limited edition electric hypercar off road at speeds that would really not be advisable. Unsurprisingly, so overwhelming was this all-out assault on the senses, once back at the starting line it took a great summoning of will not to throw up.
What’s more surprising, however, is that a car with such capabilities as this then proves to be child’s play to drive on the open road. Rimac's All-Wheel Torque Vectoring 2 (R-AWTV 2) system replaces your traditional ESP and traction control systems, calculating more than 100 times per second the precise level of torque to channel through each wheel for optimal stability. The result is, in “comfort” mode (as opposed to the visceral, bone-shaking “track” experienced on the runway), an exceedingly pleasant ride considering the car is not even finished yet.
The exceptionally clever electro-hyrdaulic brake booster with a pedal feel simulator distributes the stopping force between the carbon-ceramic brakes and the electric powertrain depending on which is thermally optimal at that precise time. Plus at 300kW, the Nevera has the highest regenerative braking on any EV. Oh, and it’s also supposedly the most rigid road car ever made, and at 70,000 Nm/degree.
Another example of Rimac’s tech-heavy approach, the Nevera’s electric power steering uses steer-by-wire, enabling adaptive driver feedback depending on the drive mode. This system also works as a drive-by-wire system when in “Driver Coach” mode, demonstrating optimum racing lines and vehicle control to the driver.
That’s right, the car has an AI driving coach built in. Drawing on the 12 ultrasonic sensors, 13 cameras, six radars and its NVIDIA Pegasus operating system that will also operate its autonomous driving capabilities, the Nevera helps its owners develop their track driving skills. The system will overlay selected race circuits in real-time, offering audio and visual guidance to help drivers perfect racing lines, braking and acceleration points and steering inputs.
Not turned on right now in this pre-production model, much like the autonomous driving tech, Rimac says this Driver Coach feature will be available next year via an over-the-air upgrade to already delivered Neveras.
Inside, the Nevera is as plush as you would expect if you’re going to fork out the best part of £2m. Everything is bespoke. The door handles, switchgear and air vents are all made from billet aluminium. The large round selectors with screens in the centre for choosing driving modes and torque adjustment had to be specially made at a cost of €500,000 because Rimac demanded a certain size. Three HD TFT screens, run bespoke software and graphics. The central screen shows a bewildering level of the Nevera’s telemetry, which can also be downloaded to your laptop or smartphone for later review or bragging rights.
I particularly like the fact that Rimac has chosen not to disguise or mutate the noise of the electric motors, leaving you to hear the full voice of the prodigious power of the car, which is fittingly futuristic and somehow analogue at the same time.
Even at this pre-production stage, the Nevera is genuinely next level. Rimac’s prowess with inverters, batteries and electric motors is so advanced that the company is forced to design and engineer practically everything itself. No other company makes what they need or can reach the standards they require.
As a result, the Nevera feels like the future of electric driving. When you consider the history, this claim seems less fantastical. Founder Mate Rimac’s first electric project was his 1984 BMW 3 Series E30 he converted to battery power at the age of 20 in his garage in 2008. He then founded Rimac Automobili the very next year. Eleven years later, the company now has more than 1,000 employees and develops electric drivetrains, battery systems and technology for Aston Martin, Porsche, Pininfarina, Hyundai, Kia, Koenigsegg, Renault, Cupra and more.
It's about to build a new, €200m state-of-the-art HQ, the Rimac Campus, on the outskirts of Zagreb. And perhaps most exciting of all is this new facility will house the brand’s research and development for coming electric technology projects, which lies at the heart of Mate Rimac’s ambition to transform mobility for all, not just the privileged few with £1.7m.
One suspects this mission to create the best hypercar in the world is at least in no small part directed at cementing the company’s reputation and continuing to attract high-profile investors, which already includes the likes of Porsche, Hyundai and Kia. How else will Mate Rimac drive his ambitious vision forward? He wants to take everyone with him, too – especially his staff.
In a world where the heads of the tech companies prefer to spend unfathomable amounts of money to blast themselves into space rather than focus their considerable power to effect meaningful change, Mate Rimac went to the trouble of engineering a change in the law in Croatia so that he could gift every single person working at Rimac equity in the company – even the cleaners. “They all need to care. They all need to have skin in the game,” he says. This is not speed for speed’s sake.
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This article was originally published by WIRED UK
