Rimac Concept One-The Original All Electric Hypercar
Tesla's announcement of the new all electric Tesla Roadster might have excited and astounded many of you tech and auto geeks out there. The Tesla Roadster definitely is something that deserves applause but is it the first electric hypercar to be ever created? My answer to that would be an absolute no! So that brings me to an auto parts manufacturing company called Rimac. Rimac automobili is a privately held firm founded by Mate Rimac that is headquartered at Zagreb County, Croatia. The company mostly focuses on developing new battery system technology and drivetrains to sell to the world's major auto manufacturers. For example, renowned British Sportscar company Aston Martin worked with Rimac on their new high end supercar, the Valkyrie. In addition, Jaguar has also worked with Rimac to develop their all electric E-Type.
While the technology that Rimac develops is definitely breaking new grounds, the story behind how Rimac was founded is more interesting than the new technologies that it develops. Mate Rimac was a drag racer in Croatia and during a racing event his BMW 3 series' engine burst into flames. Because he was interested in electric motors, he decided to attach electric motors to his BMW. When he raced his car people made fun of it and called it the "washing machine" because it was the only car at the drag strip that was electric. However, he proved to every single spectator and competitor that his car was speed king because there was no car on the drag strip that could beat his electric BMW. He went on to break 5 FIA and Guiness World Records with his BMW and that was when he thought about building his own electric supercar. So he founded Rimac in 2009 and an investor from Abu Dhabi helped financially support his venture. However, the investor tried to scam Rimac by trying to make them move to Abu Dhabi. Mate fought back and did something absolutely crazy. He sold everything that he owned and took a personal loan against him. Despite his efforts to raise money to achieve his dream, the technology to create an all electric hypercar was not available and the money to develop all that technology and integrate it into a car was very high. So, his company decided to develop the technology by making their own auto parts and selling it to major auto manufacturers. In 2013, the world's first electric hypercar debuted at the 2011 Frankfurt Motor Show and it was named the Rimac Concept One.
The Concept One is frankly one of the most technology packed cars ever produced. Not only is it packed with tech, it is absolutely mind blowingly ridiculously quick off the line because its batteries supply a megawatt of power during acceleration. It's so quick that it can demolish the Porsche 918 Spyder which is the fastest road going Porsche ever made and quite frankly one of the quickest cars on earth when put against for a drag race. The Concept One has 1224 horsepower that is generated by 4 electric motors, one at each wheel. With a top speed of 220 miles per hour it's definitely not a slow car by modern standards. Even though the Concept One is an amazing collection of numbers, its pure brilliance lies in the amount of driving customization ability that it gives to the driver. So what do I mean by that? In the Concept one you can change between all wheel drive, front wheel drive, or rear wheel drive.In fact, you can also choose how efficiently you want your brakes to regenerate energy while braking. Moreover, you can also control how fast the car's two speed double clutch gearbox shifts. All this customization can be done right from the huge touch screen on the dashboard of the car.
The Concept One also has a very advanced traction control system that is based on torque vectoring. The car can adjust the torque sent to each wheel every millisecond which is extremely impressive. Now comes the most important fact of all-its range. The Concept One has a fairly impressive range of 210 miles. Last but not the least, if you thought that you could buy one then you are certainly wrong because they are all sold and it costs a very affordable 1.4 million dollars.
Rimac has developed so much more impressive technology that if I tried to describe everything to you it would probably take me at least 2000 words. So, I decided to share what I think is one of the most impressive automobiles ever created. It is a car of its time and its creator Mate shows all of us that if you set your aspirations high enough you might actually end up creating something worthwhile.
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