Rimac Concept One: The World’s First Electric Hypercar

Earning the title of “World’s fastest accelerating electric car” is no easy feat. Taking off from my previous article on Rimac’s Origin Story, we kick things off with this: The Rimac Concept One, a lightweight, super agile and super-fast world first electric hypercar. A car, according to the owner Mate Rimac was, “developed by petrol heads and car fanatics, and those who love cars” The passion, effort and workmanship that has been put into the Concept One can clearly be seen, the styling on both the exterior and interior is exhilarating. Its performance figures are godlike and nothing like we’ve ever seen in an electric car before, we know full well that massive amounts of torque are produced from the batteries incorporated in electric cars. But it’s the way it gets to speed and how it keeps on going that’s just mesmerising and unbelievable.

Tech Specs, performance figures and price:

The Concept One incorporates four electric motors, each one used to power each wheel individually. The elegant engineering that’s gone into this thing doesn’t go unnoticed with batteries being mounted along the spine of the car and behind the rear bulkhead. Where to the eyes of the beholder when you open the rear hatch to see the power distribution unit, where you would otherwise expect to see the engine in a mid-engined supercar.

As you would expect having earned its title the performance figures are also expected to match. Indeed, they do, developing an astonishing 1,224bhp and 1,600Nm of Torque. Means that this monster accelerates from 0-62mph in 2.5 seconds and goes onto an unbelievable 220mph top speed (in an electric car) with a 310-mile range. Though with only 8 being made, and all sold out and costing in at over £880,000 pounds it is very rare that you’ll see one cruising on the streets. Or let alone hear it.

Their unique all-wheel torque vectoring means that the Concept One produces unbelievable flexibility and grip. By controlling each wheel individually one hundred times per second, and having the option to switch the power from front-wheel to rear-wheel-drive if demanded.

Milestones achieved:

The Rimac Concept One is responsible for achieving quite a large number of milestones, where it participated at the 2015 Pikes Peak race with a 1,500 bhp highly customised version called the E-Runner Concept One. The vehicle took second place overall competing against ICE vehicles. The driver was the multiple Pikes Peak winner Nobuhiro Tajima, which was mentioned in the Rimac: Origin Story.

After a series of incremental improvements, the final version of the car was presented at the March 2016 Geneva Motor Show. In 2017, it participated for the first time at Goodwood Festival of Speed, breaking the EV speed record on a timed track.

The Future of EV

The Rimac Concept One really is pushing EV technology to the edge of the envelope, a small plucky little company from Croatia and it’s already going up against the big leagues including Tesla, Aston Martin, Mercedes and BMW.

Almost all of the components from the batteries, drivetrain, the technology used in the Concept One were all made by Rimac themselves. Their involvement in the automotive industry exceeds those which one might expect. Where they were responsible for the development of the KERS hybrid-battery systems for the Aston Martin Valkyrie, while also implementing their battery technology into the Koenigsegg Regera.

Rimac Automobili isn’t just some one-off manufacturer wanting to grab media attention for a one-off masterpiece, they may have launched in 2009 in a country which has never had an automotive manufacturer company arise from it. But it sure as hell didn’t stop Mate Rimac from attempting, and what an attempt it has been. The development of the Concept Two is already underway, with an article soon following, though the philosophical question which we all keep coming back to… are electric cars really the future for the automobile or are they just a hip trend that could one day go out of style?