Bending physics’: inside Rimac’s plan to make the fastest EV on the planet

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Bending physics’: inside Rimac’s plan to make the fastest EV on the planet

Before I was allowed to drive the Nevera, Rimac Automobili’s $2-million 1,914 horsepower all-electric hypercar, chief test and development driver Miro Zrncevic took me for a quick drive out of Rimac’s headquarters and along some local roads. Zrncevic recently set the world record for the fastest production EV on the planet in a Nevera, doing a whopping 256mph on a closed track, so he looked unsurprisingly cool and calm at lower legal speeds, shuttling me to the outskirts of Zagreb.

Zrncevic showed me how to put the Nevera in drive (a rotary PRNDL shifter sits to the left of the steering wheel) and how to cycle through the car’s various drive modes. Range mode, he said, is the slowest, with the bulk of the power to the front wheels, the powerful rear motors only offering 30 percent of maximum torque. In this mode, he put his foot to the floor, and the car eagerly leapt forward. “Like a 911 or an M3,” Zrncevic said, and it was true. The car was already very quick.

“Like a 911 or an M3.”

He then toggled the Nevera into Cruise mode, which unlocked just 70 percent of the Nevera’s full power front and rear, and stepped on the gas again.

My phone, which I’d been using to take notes, leapt out of my hand and smacked into my chest so hard I can still feel the bruise. Such was the response, the unrepentant acceleration, of the car. This mode, Cruise, is the second-slowest of six modes, with four higher to come, each progressively quicker and more brutal than the one before.

Rimac’s chief test and development driver, Miro Zrncevic, behind the wheel of the company’s $2 million hypercar.

Rimac’s chief test and development driver, Miro Zrncevic, behind the wheel of the company’s $2 million hypercar.

The Nevera clearly is a remarkably fast car, but in an electrified time when performance is a commodity and acceleration is just a question of how quickly a system can funnel electrons from batteries to motors, speed alone isn’t enough to make a car stand out.

When I later spoke with Mate Rimac, CEO and founder of Rimac Automobili, I asked him what makes a Rimac a Rimac. “Bending physics,” he said without hesitation. Making my phone leap out of my hand is certainly an interesting trick. But, as I would learn, Rimac is doing a lot more than raising the bar when it comes to vehicular performance.

Rimac Automobili, now Rimac Group, was founded in 2009, born out of Rimac’s experience pulling the blown engine out of his E30 BMW and developing a custom electric drivetrain. After setting multiple world acceleration records in that car, Rimac rolled that experience into the $980,000 Concept_One supercar, a 2011 release that went on to set even more records. Since then, Rimac received investments from Porsche and Hyundai, provided technology to companies like Aston Martin, Jaguar, and Koenigsegg, and perhaps most significantly, took over control of Bugatti in 2021.