RIMAC'S MIGHTY NEVERA EV ADDS YET ANOTHER SPEED RECORD TO IT'S TALLY - IN REVERSE ITS FASTER THAN MOST CARS FORWARDS!
The Rimac Nevera has hit the automotive news headlines again, and yeah, it's for another speed record. The Croatian hypercar is a marvel of modern technology, and with all the speed records the car already has to its name, it’s pretty much cemented itself as the king of EV hypercars. In recent months the Rimac Nevera amassed a whopping 23 Performance World Records that include a 0-400-0 km/h in just 29.93 seconds, a 0-100 km/h shunt in 1.82 seconds, a 0-200 km/h dash in just 4.42 seconds and a 0-300 km/h run in 9.92 seconds. It ran a quarter-mile pass of just 8.25 seconds. That’s the territory of stupidly fast, blown V8s on massive slicks on a prepared drag strip - the Nevera did it on street-legal Michelin Cup 2 R tyres on regular non-prepped tarmac while exposing the driver to 1.5G of acceleration force. Fighter jet stuff, almost. The Rimac Nevera is a beast of an EV, its quad motor setup affords the car all-wheel drive and each one produces 470 kW with 900 Nm of torque at each end of the car, to save you from a quick sum, that’s a total of 940 kW (1,260 hp) and 1,800 Nm of torque. So the Nevera literally owns all the EV speed records on the planet, and that covers loads of the records that previously belonged to ICE-powered cars. But there was still one speed world record for the Croatian hypercar to claim, which it recently managed to bag at the ATP proving ground in Papenburg, Germany at the hands of Goran Drndak - a man who clearly has nerves of steel.
EVs don’t make use of a conventional transmission, there’s no real gearing involved, but technical wizardry. If you’ve ever played with a Scalectrix motor and a battery, you’ll know that if you swap the battery around, the motor will spin in the opposite direction. Well, it’s pretty much the same for a full-sized EV. Manufacturers obviously limit this, but if they fiddled with the electronics and software it's quite possible that an EV could do the same speed in reverse as it could going forward. “It occurred to us during development that Nevera would probably be the world’s fastest car in reverse, but we kind of laughed it off. The aerodynamics, cooling and stability hadn’t been engineered for travelling backwards at speed, after all. But then, we started to talk about how fun it would be to give it a shot. Our simulations showed that we could achieve well over 150mph but we didn’t have much of an idea how stable it would be – we were entering unchartered territory.” says Matija Reniċ,
Nevera Chief Program Engineer at Bugatti Rimac. As you’d expect, this thought turned into yet another speed record attempt - to try and grab the Guinness World Record for the fastest car in reverse. Using the Time Attack Edition livery, the Rimac the Nevera was driven to a top speed of 275.74 km/h (171.34 mph) - IN REVERSE! “On the run itself, it definitely took some getting used to. You’re facing straight out backwards watching the scenery flash away from you faster and faster, feeling your neck pulled forwards in almost the same sensation you would normally get under heavy braking. You’re moving the steering wheel so gently, careful not to upset the balance, watching for your course and your braking point out the rear-view mirror, all the while keeping an eye on the speed. Despite it being almost completely unnatural to way the car was engineered, Nevera breezed through yet another record.” said Goran DrndakTake a look at the YouTube video that shows off not only how ridiculously fast the Rimac Nevera is in any damn direction, but also that test driver Goran Drndak is absolutely bonkers. He took the world's fastest car to yet another world record in the wrong direction at speeds most normal people will never travel at in their lives in any direction: Bending Physics: Nevera sets new Guinness World Records™ Title – 275.74 km/h in reverse! | RimacAutomobili
Be sure to check out our YouTube channel here for more exciting and exclusive SXdrv content! And don't forget to smash that subscribe button!