BREMEN (Germany): A Rimac Nevera R reached 431.45kph at the Automotive Testing Papenburg facility last week in Germany, a feat the Croatian hypercar maker is calling a world record for the top speed of an electric vehicle.
"Breaking records is in our DNA, and we won't stop here," Mate Rimac, founder and president of Rimac Group, and chief executive officer of Bugatti Rimac and Rimac Technology, said in a press statement.
The "R" stands for radical, relentless and rebellious, Rimac said when he introduced the €2.3mil (RM11.5mil) electric hypercar during Monterey Car Week last year.
But in the elite echelons of extreme speed, many records come down to technicalities and semantics.
Rimac's mark beat the Nevera R's previous top speed of 411.9kph but it did not surpass the 439.3kph achieved by an Aspark Owl SP600 in 2024, which earned Guinness World Records certification as "the fastest battery-powered electric prototype hypercar in the world."
The "prototype" distinction is important: 40 units of the Nevera R will be produced, with customer deliveries beginning later this year, while the Aspark Owl SP600 used for the top-speed run was a prototype.
"We believe that's a meaningful distinction for customers: You're not just buying a one-off prototype, but a record-breaking car you can actually drive on the road," says Marta Longin, a Rimac spokesperson.
Representatives for Aspark did not respond to a request for comment.
Rimac used a high-precision data acquisition system from Dewesoft to measure the run.
Officials from Guinness World Records were not on-site, Longin says, citing its laborious certification structure.
"It requires unusual event formats like simultaneous runs with over 10 competitive cars, which is more relevant to consumer stunts and show events," she says.
Rimac used Guinness to certify its 275.2kph top speed in reverse record in 2023.
The Nevera R's new top speed is one of 24 benchmarks set by the 2,107hp car from July 5-8.
Among them was an improved 0-100kph sprint time of 1.66 seconds, beating the Nevera's previous 1.74-second sprint time and a 0-400-0kph time of 25.79 seconds - a full 2.04 seconds quicker than the 27.83 seconds achieved by the Koenigsegg Jesko Absolut in 2024.
Cars powered by internal combustion still have the upper hand in speed runs.
In 2019, a Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+ hit 489.2kph; Koenigsegg and SSC Tuatara both make petrol-powered cars with higher top speeds than the Nevera.
