Last Friday I was at Pebble Beach and I had the opportunity to ride in the Rimac Concept One, one of the fastest cars in the world. With only 1 unit registered in the USA, it's a rare car, and you will see it more often in car shows than in the street. It's produced by Rimac Automobili, a Croatian company based near Zagreb.
Here's the RIMAC Concept One:
For the little story behind this test drive:
My boss got invited by Mate Rimac (the CEO) and asked us to join. We drove 1 hour and a half from San Francisco to meet the Rimac team in a multi-million-dollar house rented for the occasion in the heights of Carmel-by-the-sea.
Soon after a presentation of the company and a short business discussion, it was time to discover the Rimac Concept One, gently being charged next to the house's garage.
Yes, the car is ELECTRIC. Yes, it is a supercar, a sort of Tesla Model S on steroids powered by 4 engines (one per wheel !).
Here's the front engine bay and the cooling system needed to chill not less than 1,088 horses.
You can see the front engines under the suspension.
The rear rear engine bay hosts some battery monitoring systems and hides the rear engines.
PERFORMANCE
This car can accelerate from 0 to 100 kph (0-60 mph)in 2.8 seconds.
If 0-100kph does not speak to you, then imagine a 0 to 200 kph (120 mph) in 6.2 seconds, or a 0 to 300 kph in 14.2 seconds. For the record, a Porsche 911 Carrera will reach 200 kph in (only) 13.2 seconds. By this time, the RIMAC will be already cruising a 280 kph. Mind-blowingly fast.
Concept One has been described as the world's first electric supercar becoming the world's fastest accelerating electric automobile as of 2013.
It achieves this insane level of performance using 2 tricks:
- Lightweight technologies
- Massive amounts of horsepower
1- The RIMAC weights 1,850kgs, which is 400kgs less than a Tesla
Light is right (Colin Chapman)
But electric cars are heavy... because of all the battery packs. For instance: a Tesla P90D weights 2,239 kgs.
Maintaining the car under the 2 tons limit requires a massive use of the lightest of materials: Carbon fiber
The body of the Concept One is made of carbon fiber and the chassis is chromoly-steel with aluminum and carbon fiber members.
2- For the power, we have a total output of 1,088 hp and 1,600 Nm
Yes, it is more powerful than the first Bugatti Veyron (1,001 hp).
The car has 4 (yes FOUR) engines: Each wheel is powered by a separate liquid-cooled permanent magnet synchronous electric motor and controlled by the All Wheel Torque Vectoring System (see below) that distributes the power to the wheels in accordance with user setup and driving conditions.
The motors are powered by a 82 kWh lithium iron phosphate battery (4 times the size of a Nissan Leaf battery pack) giving the car a range of roughly 500 km (310 mi) per charge (assuming you drive slowly).
TORQUE VECTORING
Most current AWD control oversteer and understeer by braking a spinning wheel or cutting the power from the engine.
Torque vectoring is the next step in All Wheel Drive technology: it distributes power to any wheel nearly instantly without having to use the brakes or cut power.
This technology provides the differential with the ability to vary the power independently to each wheel: Not only CUT the power, but also GIVE more if needed.
DRIVING
Enough specs and technology, let's enter the car
First impression is that it is SUPER LOW. Probably the lowest car I ever been into.
Inside is made of leather and Alcantara, the bare minimum for a $980,000 car.
Carbon fiber is omnipresent (another legacy of the $980,000 price tag), and fits perfectly with all the infotainment systems: dashboard is 100% digital and totally configurable.
The central console hosts a tablet used to select driving modes and to witness the effects of the famous torque vectoring.
Wheels are massive and and carbon-ceramic brakes speak by themselves about braking power of this car.
Efficiency has a price: a set of 4 carbon-ceramic brakes costs generally around $20,000.
HOW FAST IS IT ?
This car has been designed to be fast, and I can only say that they succeeded in that.
Here's a video I made to show you how the speedometer becomes crazy when you push the pedal.
(Yes, it's miles per hour on the dashboard.)
I had the opportunity to drive and ride in lots of fancy and fast cars, and today I drive a 2016 Mustang GT (435 hp, 0-60mph in 4.7 sec), but the Rimac Concept One lives on another planet in terms of performance.
It is so fast it will hurt your back upon acceleration.
On top of this insane straight line performance, the torque vectoring system allows the driver to take corners extremely aggressively. The machine is literally glued to the road, and you can feel how each wheel works to contain the 1,088 horses trying to catapult the driver outside of the road. It's probably the most impressive feature of the car, yet the most difficult to describe.
IS IT FASTER THAN A TESLA OR A FERRARI ?
Let's take the fastest Tesla: the P90D and its ludicrous mode.
Let's also take the fastest Ferrari (why not?): the LaFerrari.
Now let's race them agains the Rimac!!
This is what Digital Trends did, and the video speaks by itself:
It gives you another perspective of the performance level of the Rimac Concept One.
I hope you enjoyed this article and that you learnt more about this car.
I was truly lucky to be able to ride in this car, and I hope I was able to transcribe this experience to you.
(Follow me for more stories like this one)
Some sources:
- http://www.rimac-automobili.com/en/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rimac_Concept_One
- http://evbud.com/news/505/
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