Rimac Nevera R review: the fastest accelerating car in the world

How much faster is the Rimac Nevera R than a ‘normal’ one?

Not at all… from 0-60mph. Because of the physical limit of Michelin Cup 2 tyres (which are pretty sticky black circles, to be fair) the Nevera R still takes 1.8 seconds to run that industry standard benchmark.

That’s despite power from the quad-e-motor set-up being ramped up from 1,888bhp to 2,078bhp. And a 35kg weight saving. And a £300,000 price increase. At this point, if your brain can process anything besides the immense G-forces, you might be feeling a little short-changed.

What happens next?

The Nevera R stops accelerating and commences teleporting. Its 0-125mph (200kph) time is 4.3 seconds. By the time it passes 186mph (300kph), only 8.66 seconds have elapsed since you floored the throttle and released the brakes.

Eight and a half seconds to a hundred and eighty plus. It’s 1.5 seconds faster than a Koengisegg Jesko, a 3.5-second annihilation of the Bugatti Chiron Super Sport, and unlike most ultra-rapid EVs which run out of puff once aero drag becomes a major factor, the Nevera R keeps on tugging its sun-lounger rear wing all the way to 256mph. Welcome to the most powerful, fastest accelerating road car in the world.

What on Earth does that feel like?

Like nothing else on Earth really, unless you’re a fighter jet pilot regularly being flung off the end of an aircraft carrier. Teeing up a launch is easy: just press both pedals and point the steering wheel straight.

What takes longer is the pre-flight checks on your own body. Is your head safely against the headrest? Have you forced the tip of your tongue into the back of your bottom teeth? Have you tensed your core?

If the answer to any of those questions is ‘no’, then don’t even think about coming off the brakes. You’ll give yourself whiplash, swallow your tongue whole and unleash a Biblical storm of butterflies into your tummy. Not ideal when you’ve got a £2.3 million all-carbon missile to steer.

But the standard Nevera was already a rocketship? Why has Rimac made it quicker?

Partly because once you’ve learned the technique to launching it without turning your intestines inside out, you feel like you’ve mastered the beast, so customers want that sensation all over again.

But there was also an admission from Mate Rimac that the original Nevera, was, if anything, too good. Too competent. Too easy to use.

Seriously?

His words, not ours. Specifically, he said: “When we developed the Nevera, an important part of the brief was that it should be a Grand Tourer. But we’re relentlessly tweaking to customers’ desires, and many were looking for a car that really emphasised the Nevera’s cornering ability. We responded with the Nevera R: all the DNA of the record-breaking Nevera, but lighter, faster and more focused.”

Makes sense, if you think about it. If you’re a hypercar collector, you probably don’t want an electro-weapon that’s daily commutable. You want it to blow your mind in a short, sharp hit. You’ve got a fleet of other vehicles to take to the shops.

And they’ve sharpened up the looks too?

Indeed, the R has been thoroughly resculpted by Bugatti Rimac design chief Frank Heyl, who’s drawn every Bugatti since the Veyron Super Sport. He’s come up with a shape that’s more aero-efficient than the regular Nevera, but also generates 400kg of downforce at top speed.

Without an opportunity to visit a track, we can’t report on that effect yet. But we can confirm the R is the best looking Rimac yet. It’s pointier and more purposeful, with a menacing lizard-like glare and more exotic flourishes throughout. The triple-pylon rear wing, triple-spoke wheels and three status lights in the side flank all nod to Rimac’s love of the number 3, because the car uses three-phase electric motors. Geeky!

Where’s the extra power actually come from?

A higher output battery, which is actually slightly down on capacity: 108kWh here plays 120kWh in the standard car. So range is unlikely to be beyond 250 miles at best. But your insides won’t last that long.

To harness the titanic shove, the R wears Cup 2 tyres (grip is phenomenal) and silicon-coated brakes (the stopping feel and handover from regen to friction-braking is world-class).

In fact everything about the car feels natural and cohesive. The steering is beautifully crisp and responsive off centre but never as hyperactive as a Ferrari’s. The R rides with McLaren-like compliance, ironing bumps, erasing imperfections, maintaining body control on a molecular scale. Leave it in Cruise mode and it seems to hover along like a Rolls-Royce. Even Track mode, which unleashes the full 2,000+ horsepower, is usable without needing Silverstone.

And all the while you sense the racecar stiffness of the carbon monocoque, which could survive a direct hit from Thor’s hammer. You’d need to apply a 70,000Nm force just to bend that safety cell by a single degree.

Comfy? Easy to drive? It doesn’t sound like a hardcore special…

And look inside: proper seats, not carbon shells padded with bits of mousemat. Seatbelts like you’d find in a Dacia Sandero, not seventeen-buckle harnesses. You even get metal door handles, not fabric loops.

This particular Nevera R is more hardcore, because it’s the factory test mule prototype. No carpets, less soundproofing, bare carbon everywhere (including the naked, scarred bodywork) and lots of data loggers. It’s done 62,000km of hard testing in deserts, ice caps and on racetracks, and actually started life as a standard Nevera before being upgraded to R spec. Surely this must be the highest mileage electric hypercar… ever?

Do you ever get used to all that powerrrrrrrrr?

You can deal with the forces. The responsibility takes longer.

What troubled me was the notion of driving it on the public road. Would it be hopelessly unsatisfying, a futile exercise in hypercar excess? Well, you need restraint, that’s for sure. Because the R can use all of its monumental power – choosing when to deploy it gives you a 2,000bhp god complex.

I’ve never felt such a weight of responsibility in a road car before. You whoosh along propelled by innate superiority – there is simply nothing that could come along behind you that poses a threat. No law enforcement in the world could keep up. There have been a handful of other cars which can exceed 250 miles per hour, but none of them get there anything like this quickly – or indeed silently.

It’s an eerie feeling, pootling along at say, fifty-ish miles an hour, knowing that in four or five seconds from this moment if you so choose, you could be the fastest moving land-borne object on the continent.  And in near silence too. Just a distant motor whine and the ratta-tat-tat machine gun fire of grit rattling around the wheelarches.

So what’s the verdict?

This is a staggeringly complete car for such a young company. Addictively fast, yet stunningly usable. Vice-free, really. It renders all your benchmarks of what a fast car is utterly obsolete.

And yet… they just don’t sell, do they? The Rimac Nevera is the best-selling of all the electric hypercars, but there are still plenty of the 150 build slots left unfilled. Only 40 Rs will ever exist, but unlike a GMA T.50, Pagani Utopia or the Bugatti Tourbillon, you can’t be confident it’ll sell out immediately.

Perhaps the Nevera R will apply a million-horsepower defibrillator to this motoring cul-de-sac. It looks rowdier, has even sillier specs and yet the scariest thing about it is how damn easy it is to drive. For me it only works as part of a collection – as a sensation you simply can’t experience anywhere else, to indulge in on a day when you don’t fancy one of the open-gate manuals, 9,000rpm V10, or twin-turbo catapults that lurk in your collection.

One thing might guarantee the Nevera R’s status as a future icon: it isn’t going to be bettered. Across the world, electric supercar programmes are being cancelled faster than Star Wars spin-offs. Mate Rimac has speculated his next hypercar won’t be 100 per cent electric. So despite the never-ending power wars, it’s possible nothing will supersede the Nevera R’s record-pulverising lunatic acceleration for longer than you might expect.