On the outskirts of Dubai is a technological oasis that appears to have sprouted out of the desert itself. Its centerpiece, the Al Wasl Dome, catches your eye almost as if an alien spaceship has landed, bringing technology you’d think has come from the future.
Welcome to Dubai’s Expo 2020, the first World Expo to be held in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia (MEASA) region. Always happy to break a few records, Dubai put on a bombastic show as the expo took place a year late, from October 2021 to March 2022 (thanks, pandemic). With the theme ‘Connecting Minds and Creating the Future,’ Dubai’s Expo 2020 featured pavilions from 192 countries and stretched out over a massive 438 hectares—that’s more than twice the area of Monaco.
Engineering.com was at the scene to take in many of the awe-inspiring displays. For instance, the feeling of visiting distant worlds was made palpable by the presence of the moon rock, which visitors could touch at the aerospace-focused U.S. pavilion. The Italy pavilion—made primarily from orange peel and coffee grounds, and covered by ropes recycled from two million plastic bottles—featured a full-scale 3D printed Michelangelo’s David. At Czech Republic, Photon Systems Instruments claimed to “speak Plantish” by demonstrating how phenotyping technology could be used to understand the needs of plants. Singapore’s living pavilion showcased how 517 solar panels could power 170 plant types in the UAE desert while maintaining net-zero energy and water systems.
However, most of these engineering marvels were in the concept phase—unlikely to be seen in the real world anytime soon. There was one notable exception: the Rimac Nevera, which has accomplished several never-seen-before feats in the electric hypercar space.
Rimac Nevera
The Nevera is a next-generation hypercar designed and produced by Croatian automotive manufacturer Rimac Automobili (pronounced Ree-mahtz). Named after a powerful lightning storm that strikes the Croatian coast in the summer, the all-electric Nevera aspires to cause a similar disruption in the world of hypercars.
Released in 2021, the Rimac Nevera has a whopping 1914 hp and delivers 2360 Nm of torque; that’s almost triple the output of a conventional hypercar. It can go from 0 to 62 mph (100 km/h) in under two seconds, and reaches a maximum speed of 258 mph (412 km/h)—making it the fastest-accelerating production car in the world. That it can surpass the speediest Formula 1 race cars—all while weighing a lumbering 4,740 lb (2,150 kg)—is testament to the next-level engineering within the Nevera.
Despite hailing from Croatia, a country with practically no automotive industry of its own, Rimac designed and manufactured the majority of the Nevera’s key components from scratch. The company was founded in 2009 with the approach that its engineers could become the experts in relatively new technologies, such as high-performance batteries and electric powertrains. Almost everything in the Nevera is developed in-house—from the chassis, suspension and battery pack, to the inverters, motors, pumps, fans and even buttons. Only 150 units of the Nevera will be custom-produced at a rate of one car per week, each with a price tag of $2.5 million (€2 million).
The Nevera is driven by four permanent-magnet electric motors, i.e. one motor for each wheel. Paired into a front and rear power system, these hub motors deliver different amounts of torque to each wheel independently. The front power system delivers a maximum torque of 280 Nm to each of the front motors, while the rear power system provides 900 Nm to the rear motors. ((280 Nm × 2) + (900 Nm × 2) = 2,360 Nm of torque throughout the car.)
Rimac’s software-controlled All-Wheel Torque Vectoring 2 (R-AWTV 2) system automatically adjusts each wheel’s torque up to 100 times per second. First, several sensors (i.e., accelerometers, gyroscopes, steering angle sensors and wheel speed sensors) paint a picture of what’s happening in the car. An algorithm uses this data along with pre-existing models to predict how the vehicle will behave, and calculates the optimal torques to be distributed across the four motors. According to Rimac, the system helps the car find grip levels that were previously not considered possible, adding to the car’s stability when cornering on the race track.
Through its advanced torque vectoring system, the Nevera enables flexible handling and traction control on the fly. Drivers can select from seven pre-programmed drive modes: Sport, Drift, Comfort, Range, Track, and two additional custom modes that mix and match performance characteristics such as throttle response, brakes, suspension, steering, and front-to-rear torque split. For example, a driver could choose to furiously race the car in Track mode—and in the next instant, switch to Drift mode and send all that torque to the rear axle within a millisecond. A near-infinite number of wheel torque distributions can be generated by the R-AWTV 2 system electronically, translating to a remarkable bandwidth of driving experiences.
According to the company, hypercars are the perfect application of vehicle electrification due to increased performance. Instantaneous torque in EVs results in very low drivetrain inertia, while internal combustion engine cars require time for their combustion process to be converted to propulsion. However, there’s one obvious downside to electrification: a heavy battery that weighs the car down. Although Nevera’s 120-kWh, 6960-cell lithium manganese nickel battery can produce 1.4 MW of power, it weighs 1,543 lb (700kg)—the largest battery in the EV business.
How can the Nevera pack such extreme speeds while lugging around a three-quarter-ton battery pack? It’s all about layout and placement. Rather than putting the battery in the floor of the vehicle—which would drive up the car’s height by at least 15 cm, putting the Nevera into an entirely different sedan-esque segment of cars—Rimac designed a unique T-shaped battery that would run along the tunnel and rear of the car. By mounting the seats low and concentrating the battery weight in the rear, a lower center of gravity was achieved and the weight distribution was optimized across the Nevera. The resulting lower roof line in turn led to reduced drag and better aerodynamic performance in the hypercar.
High battery power puts a premium on battery cooling. In addition to its custom liquid cooling system, Rimac makes use of air intakes throughout the hypercar despite the vehicle’s electrification. The air intakes on the rear sides of the car are particularly noteworthy; they feature a ‘cravat’ motif—that’s Rimac’s nod to the necktie, which was conceived in Croatia back in the 17th century.
Although no one buys a hypercar with the intention of crashing it, should the driver have an accident, they are well-protected. One major feature of the Nevera is its carbon-fiber chassis, which forms the largest carbon-fiber structure of any car in the automotive industry. The Nevera’s carbon fiber monocoque extends through a bonded roof, an integrated structural battery pack and the rear carbon subframe in one piece. With a torsional rigidity of 70,000 Nm/degree, it is almost twice as stiff as a regular supercar (which would be around 40,000 Nm/degree). Not only does the carbon-fiber chassis result in a roof that can resist more than three times the weight of the car—it keeps the car running light as well.
Other cool features of the Nevera include facial recognition technology—which has the ability to recognize if a driver has passed out at the wheel (courtesy of the car’s G force), subsequently slowing the car to a complete stop. Rimac has also developed an AI driver coach for the Nevera, which uses 13 cameras, 12 ultrasonic sensors and six radar units connected to the NVIDIA Pegasus operating system to guide drivers in perfecting their racing lines and vehicle control. The company plans to roll out Level 4 autonomous driving for race tracks—though it doesn’t work for street driving.
Being faster and more flexible than large companies has proved to be an advantage for Rimac when it comes to the development of high-performance electric powertrains. Rimac’s knowledge of batteries, inverters and electric motors has become so advanced that within a decade of its inception, the company has been supplying parts to other hypercar manufacturers. Today, Rimac’s technology is in cars such as the Pininfarina Battista, the Aston Martin Valkyrie and the Jaguar E-Type Zero.
The Nevera is a far cry from the first electric vehicle (EV) a teenaged Mate Rimac assembled in his garage in 2007. The fledgling racing enthusiast modified his 1984 BMW E30 into an EV after its engine had blown out during a race. Not only did the resulting EV go on to win many races, but it set several FIA-sanctioned acceleration records for electric vehicles. This encouraged the young Rimac to start his eponymous EV brand, Rimac Automobili, in 2009 at the age of 21.
Some consider Mate Rimac to be the “European Elon Musk.” Time will tell.