Croatia’s $2.7 Million Electric Supercar Is the Quickest in History

Mate Rimac is a giant-killer.The self-taught Croatian engineer launched his eponymous car company on the outskirts of Zagreb in 2009, at the age of 19, when he converted a BMW 3-Series to electric power.A few years later he was building 1,287 horsepower supercars, one of which was famously crashed off a Swiss mountainside on the motoring show “Top Gear” by host Richard Hammond.That didn’t stop the company’s momentum. Its cars just kept getting more powerful and faster as Porsche took a stake in it and also handed Mr. Rimac the reins to rival supercar builder Bugatti in 2021.While Bugattis use gigantic gasoline engines with sixteen cylinders that are assisted by electric motors in a hybrid setup, Rimac has stayed the course with all-electric power and its latest model has an abundance of it.The two-seat Nevera R has four electric motors that generate a combined 2,107 horsepower. That makes it more than twice as powerful as a Formula One car.The Rimac Nevera R has four electric motors that produce 2,107 horsepower. RimacWith direct computer control of the motors driving each wheel, instead of having to juggle an engine, transmission and all-wheel-drive system, the power is easily harnessed with great effect.Supercar brands like Rimac love making headlines and the Nevera R just wrote 24 of them. That is how many speed records it set in a single day on a test track in Germany.Along with becoming the fastest electric production car at 268.2mph, it broke 23 acceleration records for all types of cars.It sprinted to 60 mph in 1.66 seconds, reached 100 mph in 2.96 seconds and hit the 200 mph mark in just 9.25 seconds, which is less time than it would take to read this sentence aloud. A speed of 250 mph was achieved in 17.71 seconds, two seconds before the car even covered the distance of a mile.I haven’t had the opportunity to drive a Nevera R, but I have been behind the wheel of the 1,900 horsepower Automobili Pininfarina Battista, which is also built by Rimac. It can accelerate to 60 mph in a relatively sluggish 1.79 seconds and the experience is like nothing you can imagine, unless, perhaps, you are a U.S. Navy fighter pilot.The Nevera R also broke a battery of other established records, including 0-100 km/h and 200-250 km/h acceleration, but there is one of which Mr. Rimac is particularly proud.Rimac Nevera R production is limited to just 40 cars. RimacWhile acceleration like this is impressive, designing a car that can stop from such speeds in the shortest space possible is just as challenging, and the Rimac also has that covered.One of the most heralded performance records in the rarified air of supercars is the 0-250-0 mph test, which combines acceleration and braking into one metric. Despite weighing 2.5 tons, the Nevera R can do this in 26.20 seconds, which is more than two seconds quicker than the old mark.That’s not to say the car can do it all. Its driving range between charges is likely in the neighborhood of 250 miles, but don’t expect to go that far in an hour. Top speed runs will empty the battery as quickly as purchasing a Nevera R will drain your bank account.The price is 2.3 million euros, or roughly $2.7 million. That is before factoring in any import tariffs that might be added on by the time deliveries start later this year.The price isn’t the only barrier to entry, however. Rimac is only building 40 of the cars for global sale. Don’t worry, though. Rimac will surely keep making even more powerful and quicker cars, at least until people start blacking out from the speed.

Croatia’s $2.7 Million Electric Supercar Is the Quickest in History

Croatia’s $2.7 Million Electric Supercar Is the Quickest in History

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