While on its way to its American debut at ‘The Quail: a Motorsports Gathering’ in California, the Rimac Nevera made a quick stop at the drag strip at Famoso Raceway. Back in June it set the unofficial world record for the fastest accelerating production car but now, with Famoso Raceway officials and the experts from DragTimes, it was time to do it again.
Driven by Brooks Weisblat from Dragtimes, with standard Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tyres – just like every Nevera – the car lined up at Famoso drag strip, with the air temperature at 37oC/98F and track temperature at 65oC/149F.
With its Launch Control engaged – done by simply putting your left foot on the brake and flooring the accelerator – the Nevera prepared to unleash the full force of its 1,914hp powertrain through four separate electric motors. Having lifted a foot off the brake, the Nevera’s advanced control systems, including Rimac All-Wheel Torque Vectoring 2, constantly monitored which wheels had the most grip, portioning out the power to minimise wheelspin and maximise acceleration as it launched down the strip.
And in just a blink of an eye, the Nevera set the ¼-mile in a production car world record time of 8.582 seconds, at a top speed of 167.51mph. The run was the 11th of the day in quick succession, without any performance degradation between the runs, and can be seen in full on the Dragtimes YouTube channel.
Nevera’s previous unofficial world record quarter-mile time for a production car was set at 8.62 seconds earlier this year during testing in Croatia on an unprepared airstrip. Rimac has now beaten its own record and produced times that can be independently verified by third parties – with lots of performance still to be unlocked through over-the-air software updates.
Miroslav Zrnčević, Test and Development Driver said: “This was our first test on a VHT (glued) surface, so we did not know what to expect. At first we were hitting less than expected ¼ mile times (8,7 and 8,8 seconds) than we did on a normal, non prepped surface in Europe. The track temperature was 65oC and we had to do some adjustments. Our traction control learns the surface on each run and adjusts the torques on the wheels. After some adjustments and different tire warm up strategies we managed to get better results. Brooks helped with his experience of staging the car and we managed to set the world record for the fastest accelerating production car and also beat our own ¼-mile record. Still, we are confident that the Nevera has much more to give and that we can go even quicker with more experience and testing on this kind of surface. We will be back.“
Mate Rimac, Founder and CEO said: “Our business started with a BMW 3 Series that I had converted to electric power, which went on to set a number of FIA acceleration records. But what we have produced today is on a completely different level. The Concept_One, back in 2011, was the fastest accelerating EV in the world, running the quarter-mile in 9.9 seconds. We’ve now broken that record with a standard production car by 1.4 seconds. With four independent motors, each individually controlled, we have so much flexibility over how the car accelerates and corners, giving us a huge advantage over any combustion-engined vehicles.
“But Nevera is about so much more than speed. With the largest battery pack ever fitted to a production car, it can travel 340 miles on a single charge. With in-house-developed Rimac All-Wheel-Torque Vectoring 2 it’s as agile as it is fast, and with electrically adjustable dampers and active aerodynamics it’s comfortable and quiet on a cruise, and a performance machine on a track.”
Designed, engineered, tested and manufactured in-house at Rimac Automobili’s global headquarters in Croatia, Nevera’s name proudly carries its Croatian heritage. A nevera is a mighty Croatian storm, known for its speed, ferocity and energy – a fitting name therefore for both the Nevera’s character and ability. Able to transform in a split second from a supple grand tourer to an all-out force of nature, Nevera is charged by lightning much like its namesake.
