MALIBU, California – Probably the most amazing thing in regards to the $2.1 million Rimac Nevera is how easy it’s to only get in and drive.
The Nevera is an electrical hypercar from Croatia. It sits low — very low — to the bottom, and at first glance it looks like the easy act of moving into it could possibly be complicated. However the doors, which lift up and out kind of like a Lamborghini’s, cut into the roof barely enough to make sure that I do not bump my head as I drop myself into the motive force’s seat.
Getting underway does take just a little little bit of learning. Gears are shifted with an enormous knob to the left of the steering wheel, the ability seat’s adjustments are hidden in a touchscreen, and switches for the turn signals and headlights are mounted directly on the steering wheel. But once you have that down, it’s easy to operate.
The entire automotive is like that — easy to operate — its 1,914 horsepower notwithstanding.
One in every of the primary things I noticed as we got underway is that it is simple to see out of the Nevera. That is not a given with cars like this. For instance, in Ferraris and Lamborghinis and other low-slung highway rockets, it’s often a challenge to see what’s behind you. But while the Nevera is unquestionably low slung, there’s barely enough of a rear window to make it easy to drive in highway traffic. Good side mirrors actually help with that.
There’s also barely enough mechanical noise to remind you that you simply’re in a hypercar. There might not be an engine, but there are 4 electric motors they usually make mellifluous mechanical sounds because the automotive moves down the road. Not so loud that I could not converse with my passenger, Rimac’s Ryan Lanteigne, in an affordable talking voice. It’s just loud enough to remind us that we’re driving in something special.
And the Nevera may be very special indeed — accurately for its just over $2 million asking price. You will see why within the video.
The Rimac story
Rimac — pronounced REE-mahtz, roughly — is Croatia’s first and only automaker. Its 35-year-old founder, Mate (MAH-ta) Rimac, began tinkering with electric vehicles after he blew the engine in an old BMW he raced as a youngster. After rebuilding it with an electrical drivetrain — and winning some races, besides — he founded Rimac Automobili in 2009, hoping to in the future construct an electrical supercar in his home country.
Although Rimac the corporate’s first years were a struggle, Mate’s timing turned out to be excellent on reflection, with automakers all over the world moving to affect their fleets.
Rimac’s early prototypes were impressive enough to draw significant investments from Hyundai and Porsche, and it raised one other 500 million euros (or about $534 million) last yr. Those served as the inspiration of what’s now a thriving business consulting to traditional automakers desirous to construct high-performance EVs. Aston Martin and Swedish supercar maker Koenigsegg are amongst Rimac’s clients, together with numerous others that the corporate says it may possibly’t yet disclose.
The Nevera is known as for the fierce summer storms that roll into Croatia from the Adriatic Sea. (Rimac employees wish to say that neveras — the storms — are “extremely powerful and charged by lightning,” identical to their automotive.)
The Nevera (the automotive) serves each as a rolling display of Rimac’s EV expertise and because the supercar that Mate Rimac has long dreamed of constructing. It is a four-motor design — one for every wheel — with a 120 kilowatt-hour battery pack, enough for about 300 miles of range under normal driving conditions.
4 motors and a cravat
But there’s nothing normal in regards to the Nevera’s power output. Those 4 motors give it a complete of 1,914 horsepower, and a couple of,360 newton-meters of torque — enough for a top speed of 258 miles per hour. Zero to 60 miles per hour takes just 1.74 seconds, in line with Rimac.
I didn’t confirm that point with any great accuracy, but I can attest that such an influence thrust is plausible. As friendly because it is to drive in traffic, the Nevera is sort of unbelievably quick when fully uncorked. Nevertheless it never feels uncontrollable, and that is a major engineering achievement.
Much more impressive, albeit more subtle, is the best way those 4 motors work together. The automotive’s systems adjust each motor’s power output 100 times a second to make sure optimum handling moment to moment. Or, put one other way, the Nevera blasts through and out of tight corners without hesitation. That is a trick that other supercars can only emulate with braking.
It’s a fair more impressive trick given the automotive’s weight, around 5,100 kilos. But as hard because it could be to imagine, that weight is so well packaged, with the batteries mounted low and shut to the Nevera’s center, that it’s hardly noticeable. (After all, the tremendous power on tap helps.)
It is a good-looking automotive, too, low and radical but not excessive. Civilized. It’s well-made, with flawless carbon fiber on the surface and comfy leather throughout the inside. Croatia doesn’t have a convention of automotive making, however the Nevera does reflect some national pride: Along with the automotive’s name, the intakes on its sides are styled to resemble a cravat, the ancestor of the fashionable necktie — a Croatian invention dating to the sixteenth century.
The Nevera starts at 2 million euros, or simply over $2.1 million. If that is in your price range, speak up soon. Rimac says it plans to construct just 150 of them.
