Right now there is no hotter production car on the planet than the Rimac Nevera. And quite possibly none that accelerates faster. If you haven’t already watched it demolish Ferrari’s 1000-horse SF90 hypercar in CarWow’s drag race, then we suggest you follow this link right here and do it now.
And then get yourself back here to watch The Late Brake Show’s Jonny Smith explore every detail of the 1914 hp Croation rocketship, drive it on both road and track, and get a comprehensive guide to the car’s production process with the sickeningly young and successful boss of the company, Mate Rimac.
The Nevera is capable of blitzing the zero to 100 mph (160km/h) supercar yardstick in 4.3 seconds and reaching 258 mph (415 km/h) flat out. While talking though the simple launch control procedure with Smith, Rimac’s engineer reminds us of one of the major differences between EV and gas-powered hypercars: there’s no need to warm the oil through in an EV, you can just mash the right pedal and go.
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And when Smith does that he’s clearly so blown away – and probably slightly terrified – that he’s actually lost for words. But when he turns to face the camera in the passenger seat after lifting off the gas, eyes like saucers, the craziness of the experience has obviously hit home. Then again, for €2 million ($2.44 million), you’d want to feel like that when you stepped on the ‘gas’.
If you’re not familiar with Jonny Smith, he’s one of those petrolheads who’s also massively into EV tech. While his garage is home to a ’68 Dodge Charger and ’64 Impala, he also built a 9.86-second road legal drag car called the Flux capacitor out of an early 1970s Enfield electric car. However, even that looks tame beside the Nevera.