Rimac Automobili, an upstart Croatian supercar and battery engineering firm, just took the wraps off of two 1000-plus horsepower all-wheel drive electric vehicles. They’re absolutely gorgeous, and they each come with four motors and four gearboxes—one at each corner.
We’ve written about Rimac’s Concept One a few times before, always with skepticism, wondering whether the car would ever see the light of day. Well, it looks like the answer might just be yes, because Rimac just showed what they say is production version of that car at this year’s Geneva Motor Show.
In addition, they’ve debuted what they refer to as the “evil twin” of the Concept One, the even more powerful and aerodynamic Concept S. As if the Geneva Motor Show needed any more high-horsepower hypercars.
I’m not complaining.
Concept One
The Concept one has been in development for about five years, finally showing up as a “production” model this year. I put “production” in quotes, because Rimac says they’re only building eight in total.
Still, it’s an utterly fascinating car from an engineering standpoint, even if you’ll never actually see one on the street.
Powertrain
The Concept One’s powertrain consists of four electric motors and four gearboxes mounted at the center of each axle. The front motors are rated at a combined 671 HP, and the rears can make 804 HP.
The front powerplants are each bolted to single-speed gearboxes, while the rears get their own two-speed dual-clutch transmissions.
So basically, at each wheel, you’ve got a high-horsepower electric motor, a gearbox and an inverter. That’s wild! Total output of all those motors is 1073 HP and 1180 lb-ft of torque.
Those motors are fed juice by 8,450 lithium-ion battery cells, which run along the center channel of the car as well as the rear of the passenger compartment.
Their total voltage is rated at 650V and capacity is 82 kWh (for some context, the Tesla Model S can be had with a 90 kWh battery pack.) Rimac says those 82 kWh can give the Concept One a range of 205 miles, though they don’t specify the drive cycle.
Chassis, Brakes and Steering
The body of the Concept One is made of carbon fiber and the chassis is chromoly steel with aluminum and carbon fiber members. Total curb weight is 4,080 pounds, which is hefty for a sports car, but reasonable for an all-electric hypercar with four motors and four gearboxes, and it’s still got 300 pounds less pudge than the new Bugatti Chiron.
Steering is electrohydraulic, suspension is a double-wishbone setup with hydraulically adjustable ride height.
The car comes to a stop via 15.3-inch carbon ceramic discs in the front and 15-inchers in the rear, squeezed by six and four-piston calipers, respectively. If those brakes aren’t enough, Rimac says the Concept One’s battery pack can absorb up to 400 kW of power from regenerative braking, yielding up to 0.6g of deceleration. 62.5 MPH to a standstill takes only a claimed 103 feet.
All that horsepower and the battery’s 1 MegaWatt of discharge capability linked to those four wheels moves the two-ton hypercar to 62.5 mph in just 2.6 seconds, to 124 mph in 6.2 seconds and to 186 mph in 14.2 seconds.
Top speed is rated at 221 mph.
Concept S
Rimac calls their new Concept S the “Evil twin” of the Concept One. It’s basically a hardcore version of the Concept One, with its four motors making about 292 more HP and 148 lb-ft more for a total of 1365 HP and 1328 lb-ft.
Add to that a 120 pound lower curb weight thanks to the deletion of sound insulation and the addition of more carbon fiber, and you wind up with a car that Rimac says can get to 62.5 MPH in 2.5 seconds, to 124 MPH in 5.6 seconds, to 186 MPH in 13.1 seconds, and all the way to a top speed of 227 MPH.
Rimac also says the Concept S gets aerodynamic enablers like a front splitter, side skirts and large rear spoiler, which work in concert to produce 34% more downforce than the concept One (1400 pounds of force), though they don’t specify the speed corresponding to those numbers.
So basically, a small Croatian firm is building state-of-the-art, 220 MPH, 1,300 HP all-wheel drive pieces of art that rocket to 60 MPH in 2.5 seconds.
What a world we live in.
Photos: Rimac