The Rimac Nevera Just Set A Wild Electric Car Speed Record

Rimac Automobili, the Croatian automotive company that is barely a decade old, has taken the EV crown, at least when it comes to hitting insanely fast speeds. The company announced its milestone achievement on November 15, revealing that its sleek Rimac Nevera electric hypercar set a new record by hitting a top speed of 258 miles per hour, officially making it the fastest production EV in the world. Boasting about the vehicle on its website, Rimac says, "Like the mighty storm system from which it takes its name, Nevera is a force like no other." The company has the numbers to back up that claim.

Last year, Rimac announced that Nevera had beaten a world record as the "fastest accelerating production car," though the results were unofficial. That was in June 2021, and it was only a couple of months later in August when Rimac decided to make things official. The electric hypercar was able to blast across a quarter mile at the Famoso Raceway in California in 8.582 seconds. During that sprint, the Nevera made it to a tad over 167 miles per hour — and as it turns out, the car is capable of much faster speeds when given enough space.

In its latest update on the Nevera, Rimac says its hypercar was taken to Germany where it had nearly 2.5 miles of straight track at Automotive Testing Papenburg to unleash its full power. The company's Chief Test and Development Driver Miro Zrnčević drove the car during this exercise, bringing the car to 258 miles per hour. That gives the company and its electric hypercar two new bragging rights: it is the fastest car to have put its tires on the Automotive Testing Papenburg track, and it is also officially the fastest EV car in production.

This is a milestone moment for Rimac, which first introduced Nevera under the name C-Two in 2018 at the Geneva Motor Show. If you make your way behind the wheel of one of these EVs, however, don't expect to hit the same top speed. Rimac says the Nevera units delivered to buyers are limited to 219 miles per hour except in special cases. That's still quite fast, of course, and the speed is made possible by four electric motors collectively outputting 1,914 horsepower. As expected, the hypercar is limited to only the wealthiest buyers due to its $2.4 million price tag. 

The Rimac Nevera is absurdly fast, even by conventional gasoline car standards, and is the absolute pinnacle of electron-filled hypercars when it comes to mashing the pedal down as far as it will go. But how does the Rimac stack up against the world of EV's other king, Tesla? 

Tesla has long been the automaker other EV makers have compared themselves to as the brand has been making electric cars on a large scale longer than most others. Other major automakers like Nissan and General Motors have made various EVs for several years, but those brands haven't staked their entire business model on EVs like Tesla has. When Elon Musk wasn't making news playing around with his other companies like SpaceX and now Twitter, he often touted the capability of Tesla's higher-end cars like the Tesla Model S Plaid and the Tesla Model X.

With a car as record-breaking as the Rimac, it only makes sense to compare it to Tesla's own record-breaker, the Model S Plaid.

The Tesla Model S Plaid is absolutely no slouch at all when it comes to speed. According to the product description on Tesla's website, the Plaid can accelerate from a dead stop to 60 miles per hour in just 1.99 seconds, making it one of the fastest production cars in history and beating out just about every supercar and muscle car to ever exist. For horsepower, the Model S Plaid generates 1,020 horsepower from its three electric motors, overpowering high-horsepower speed demons like the Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat and even a Lamborghini Aventador. Finally, the Model S Plaid tops out at 200 miles per hour, provided you have enough track to reach that speed.

The Rimac Nevera is a different beast entirely. It trounces the Tesla by a full 58 miles per hour when it comes to top speed. It will reach 60 miles per hour in 1.85 seconds, according to Rimac. 0.14 of a second difference between the Rimac and the Tesla may seem almost negligible, but when you're gunning for a world record, every hundredth of a second counts. Also, the Nevera almost doubles the horsepower of the Model S Plaid as it puts out a staggering 1,914 horsepower from its quadruple motor setup.

It's safe to say that Tesla's Model S has to pay respect to the new king of super EVs, the Rimac Nevera.