A Croatian car manufacturer Rimac Automobili’s first production model and the world’s first electric hypercar – the Concept_One – is a part of a new hypercar exhibit at the world-famous Petersen Automotive Museum in California.
Revealed to the world in production form in 2016, the Concept_One was Mate Rimac’s first car built from the ground up and was designed to showcase the potential of electric technology in the world of automotive performance. The concept was not only intended to transform the performance EV platform but to prove that an electric powertrain can make a car faster but also more exciting too.
The Concept_One is powered by four magnetic, electric motors – one for each wheel – with a total output of 900 kW/1224hp and 1600Nm of torque from 8450 battery cells. It is capable of accelerating from standstill to 100 km/h (62mph) in just 2.5 seconds, to 200 km/h (124mph) in 6, and to 300 km/h (186mph) in 14 seconds. When first released, the car was soon recognized as one of the fastest road cars, at the time beating many hypercars off the line.
The concept also helped to lay the foundation for Rimac Automobili’s latest all-electric hypercar, the Nevera. The Rimac Nevera is equipped with some of Concept_One’s technologies, including Rimac All-Wheel Torque Vectoring and a quad-motor powertrain fed by a 120kWh battery. According to the company, its next-generation, Nevera, is the most technologically advanced hypercar in the world and the fastest accelerating production car, launched by its 1,914hp motors to 300km/h (186mph) in 9.3 seconds – nearly a full five seconds faster than Concept_One.
“With the Concept_One, we didn’t want to simply create an electric version of existing hypercars,” said Mate Rimac, CEO of Rimac Group. “We wanted to create the hypercar of the 21st century. To have it stand wheel-to-wheel with other iconic hypercars in one of the most prestigious automotive museums in the world is a real honor for us. And, with only eight built, this exhibit will provide visitors with a rare glimpse of the car that so much of our knowledge and technology is built upon. The Concept_One is an absolutely crucial part of Rimac Automobili history, and – while we’ve come so far since – we’ll always look back at Concept_One proud of the electric revolution we helped to kickstart.”
