There’s More to the Rimac Nevera Than Just Horsepower

All-electric Nevera hypercar adds Croatia to the list of countries that produce neck-snappingly quick exotics.

What’s the first thing you look for when you read about a new exotic sports car? Probably its horsepower/torque figures or its 0-60 mph time. That’s OK. We do it, too. It’s a hard habit to break, especially with a car like the Rimac Nevera. But if you look beyond its stats, it gets even more interesting. Luckily, YouTuber Mat Watson and the founder of Rimac Automobili, Mate Rimac, give us an up-close tour of the Nevera in this video.

We’ll spare you suspense. The Nevera has a face-flattening 1,914 horsepower and 1,741 lb-ft of torque. According to Rimac, those figures get the Nevera to 62 mph in a ridiculous 1.97 seconds. Flat out, the Nevera can zap through the quarter mile in just 8.6 seconds and top out at 256 mph.

There’s no denying those are impressive numbers. But it’s everything else about the Nevera that has us nerding out. If the words Rimac Nevera don’t sound Italian or German or even Swedish, it’s because they’re not. They’re Croatian. As Rimac explains to Watson, “We thought it reflects the nature of the car very well – like electrified and strong and sudden.” And the Nevera is a Croatian car. It was designed, engineered and manufactured in the Southeastern European republic.

Perhaps even more intriguing is the fact that the Nevera is a Rimac car. Rimac tells Watson, “There’s nothing from another car in this car,” including the monocoque, quartet of electric motors, four gearboxes, inverters, ECUs, switches, etc. The list also includes the Lithium Manganese Nickel battery pack, which is fascinating in its own ways. Of course, it has crazy stats: 120 kWh of energy and 1.4 MW of power. Unlike a lot of other battery packs, the Nevera’s unit is not a skateboard. Instead, it’s shaped like an H.

Rimac says, “We made that decision consciously because we wanted to have a very low seat to make it a hypercar design.” An added benefit is the battery doubles as one of the Nevera’s major structural elements and contributes to its astronomically high rigidity. By itself, the Nevera’s monocoque is an impressively sturdy component. Back when Rimac was crash-testing the C-Two, the car that eventually became the Nevera, they were able to use the same monocoque cell a total of six times, according to our friends at Motor Authority.

The fact that Rimac Automobili itself even exists is amazing. You have to be ambitious and a little crazy to even think about starting your own car company, especially one that makes a $2.5 million electric super-exotic. You have to be intelligent, hard-working, innovative, charming, daring and lucky as hell to keep one in business. It looks as if Rimac is on the right path. We can’t wait to see more from the company and watch the Nevera take on machines from Ferrari, Lamborghini, Bugatti and Koenigsegg.

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Derek Shiekhi

Derek Shiekhi's father raised him on cars. As a boy, Derek accompanied his dad as he bought classics such as post-WWII GM trucks and early Ford Mustang convertibles.

After loving cars for years and getting a bachelor's degree in Business Management, Derek decided to get an associate degree in journalism. His networking put him in contact with the editor of the Austin-American Statesman newspaper, who hired him to write freelance about automotive culture and events in Austin, Texas in 2013. One particular story led to him getting a certificate for learning the foundations of road racing.

While watching TV with his parents one fateful evening, he saw a commercial that changed his life. In it, Jeep touted the Wrangler as the Texas Auto Writers Association's "SUV of Texas." Derek knew he had to join the organization if he was going to advance as an automotive writer. He joined the Texas Auto Writers Association (TAWA) in 2014 and was fortunate to meet several nice people who connected him to the representatives of several automakers and the people who could give him access to press vehicles (the first one he ever got the keys to was a Lexus LX 570). He's now a regular at TAWA's two main events: the Texas Auto Roundup in the spring and the Texas Truck Rodeo in the fall.

Over the past several years, Derek has learned how to drive off-road in various four-wheel-drive SUVs (he even camped out for two nights in a Land Rover), and driven around various tracks in hot hatches, muscle cars, and exotics. Several of his pieces, including his article about the 2015 Ford F-150 being crowned TAWA's 2014 "Truck of Texas" and his review of the Alfa Romeo 4C Spider, have won awards in TAWA's annual Excellence in Craft Competition. Last year, his JK Forum profile of Wagonmaster, a business that restores Jeep Wagoneers, won prizes in TAWA’s signature writing contest and its pickup- and SUV-focused Texas Truck Invitational.

In addition to writing for a variety of Internet Brands sites, including JK Forum and Ford Truck Enthusiasts, Derek also contributes to other outlets. He started There Will Be Cars on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube to get even more automotive content out to fellow enthusiasts.

He can be reached at autoeditors@internetbrands.com.