• last month
Transcript
00:00I'm here in a runway in Croatia with Matti Rimac.
00:03He's going to talk me through the car.
00:04Amazing looking car.
00:05Tell me about it, the design, features of it, the performance.
00:08I mean, there's so much to learn.
00:09First, it's not the C2 anymore.
00:11It's the Nevera.
00:12That's the production name.
00:13It's a Croatian car.
00:14We are very proud to have developed and produced it in Croatia.
00:17So we wanted a Croatian name.
00:18And Nevera means basically a strong and sudden storm
00:21off the Mediterranean coast with lightning and everything.
00:24And we thought it reflects the nature of the car very well,
00:26like electrified and strong and sudden.
00:28So you didn't name it after a Nissan pickup?
00:31No, not the Nevera.
00:32It's the Nevera.
00:33Right, Nevera.
00:33OK, Nevera.
00:34I'll make sure I get that right.
00:35It's a real Croatian word.
00:36So we have developed this car for four years.
00:39And the point of us doing cars in the first place
00:41was to show what electric cars can do.
00:43I started the company by converting an E30 in 1984.
00:46That's it, an E30, that's right.
00:48Into an electric car, yeah.
00:49The Nikola Tesla was born in Croatia,
00:50just like two hours from here.
00:51I was inspired by that and decided to make an electric car.
00:54So this one is the most powerful production car
00:56and fastest accelerating production car ever.
00:58Important thing to say about it,
00:59it's not like a garage project.
01:01So absolutely everything is developed
01:02specifically for this car.
01:04So a completely new platform, monocoque, powertrain,
01:07motors, inverters, gearboxes, battery pack,
01:10battery management system,
01:11all the ECUs, infotainment buttons.
01:13There's nothing from another car in this car.
01:15So completely bespoke?
01:16Completely bespoke.
01:17We built 18 prototypes so far.
01:20So it's not like, you know,
01:20doing the whole development, one or two prototypes.
01:22We are doing proper global homologation, airbags,
01:251,900 horsepower.
01:26We said it will have like 9.1 seconds to the quarter mile.
01:29And we already now achieved 8.6.
01:31So we set the bar high, but overachieved it.
01:33But it's not just about performance.
01:35So it has the biggest battery pack of any car
01:37right now on the market, 120 kilowatt hours
01:39and 1.4 megawatts out of the battery.
01:41It's also full of features.
01:42Like it has 13 cameras,
01:44it has autonomous driving capability, six radars,
01:46very nice interior with lots of space,
01:48easy to get in and out.
01:49It has a decent boot, a decent trunk.
01:51Has it got a frunk?
01:52No, here in the rear,
01:53because this is all cooling in the front.
01:55And everything in this car has a purpose,
01:57which brings me to something, Matt,
01:58we are very big fans of yours.
02:00So we can't look at you with all of these sticks,
02:06you know, to use.
02:07So this is your now official stick of truth.
02:09Oh my God.
02:11I've got a Grimhack stick of truth.
02:14And it's multifunctional.
02:15Press on the button underneath.
02:17Wait a minute, it vibrates.
02:18Yeah.
02:19Why does it vibrate?
02:21You'll figure it out.
02:23Oh, it's got two speeds.
02:24No, 10 modes.
02:26Yeah.
02:26I'm glad you like it.
02:27Is there any way that I can poke your sexy car?
02:29Yeah, look, it's all genuine.
02:30Look at this.
02:31Look at this.
02:32Everything is real.
02:32Look.
02:33Yeah.
02:34Okay.
02:35Let's put it on the side.
02:36You'll have fun with it later.
02:37I want to keep it.
02:38It will wait for you here, Matt.
02:39It's a present from my girlfriend.
02:41She'll be very happy with that.
02:43Present from Croatia.
02:44The design is driven by performance.
02:46We don't want to make cars fleshy.
02:47We don't want to make them very trendy
02:49with lots of, you know, glitter and stuff.
02:51We want to make it timeless.
02:53For example, here in the front,
02:54people think electric cars don't need cooling.
02:56They need less of it and different kind of cooling.
02:58We have a big radiator in the front for the battery pack.
03:01And also, if it's too hot outside,
03:03combustion engine cars have lots of power
03:05that you have to dissipate in terms of inefficiency
03:07and heat that gets generated.
03:08Electric cars, it's a lot less kilowatts,
03:10but the maximum temperature is much lower.
03:12So a combustion engine car can be 130, 150 degrees Celsius.
03:17A battery, for example, 60, 70.
03:19So if it's too hot outside,
03:21you don't have enough delta temperature
03:22between the outside air
03:24and the maximum temperature of the battery.
03:25So then you need a big radiator to get that heat out.
03:29And if it's too hot, it actually closes this flap.
03:31It's active aerodynamics.
03:32And then you shut it off
03:34and use the air conditioning compressor
03:35to cool the battery.
03:36Did you try it in extreme cold temperatures as well?
03:38Yeah, we did that in climatic chambers.
03:40We are starting with the production
03:41of the car in a few months.
03:42So we are still doing the final testing,
03:44but we did a lot of testing already.
03:46Yeah, so there's still some testing to do.
03:47Because that's the big thing, isn't it,
03:48that a lot of people talk about with electric cars
03:50is how your range is affected.
03:53We don't think so much about when it's hot.
03:55Yeah.
03:56Well, in the UK, we don't,
03:57because it's never that hot.
03:58But that's the easy thing.
03:59For us, the difficult one was
04:01we wanted to have continuous power
04:03so that there is not like, you know,
04:04you do two races and that's it.
04:07Yeah, like in a Tesla, you can feel,
04:09like once you're down 75% of the battery,
04:11you start to notice the drop off in acceleration.
04:12That doesn't affect this car.
04:13The goal was from the beginning,
04:15two laps on a Nürburgring without thermal derating.
04:17And you can do like, I don't know, 20 launches here.
04:19It won't degrade.
04:20At some point it will,
04:21when you either hit the thermal limit
04:22or the battery state of charge limit.
04:24When is that?
04:25So you have a power indicator
04:27of how much power is available.
04:28It tells you like, available 1,400 kilowatts.
04:30And that starts to drop somewhere
04:31around 35% state of charge.
04:33So it's not like a Tesla,
04:34like you can go down to 35%
04:36and you can still have maximum performance.
04:38Okay.
04:39The battery is not like a skateboard in the floor.
04:41We made that decision consciously
04:42because we wanted to have a very low seat
04:45to make it a hyper car design
04:47and also to make it aerodynamic, of course.
04:49And what you can see here,
04:52we were really trying very hard
04:52to make it usable and comfortable.
04:54So it has a big cutout for the roof
04:56to get in and out easily.
04:57When you sit in the seat,
04:58our goal was always to be able to put the foot down
05:01on the floor without putting your bum on the sill.
05:04So, should be able to do it without touching.
05:06Oh yeah.
05:07Yeah, you're right.
05:08Yeah, you don't have to climb onto the sill first
05:10and then on the car.
05:11No, you just get in and out like that.
05:12Yeah, you can.
05:13Yeah, you can.
05:14Exactly.
05:15Big, big door.
05:16And that's a challenge for the structure
05:17because when you do crash testing,
05:18you don't have a load pad here
05:20with the battery being a structural element
05:21and the battery modules themselves being structural.
05:23This is the stiffest structure of any car ever made
05:25with 70,000 newton meters per degree.
05:27Engineers don't understand what that means,
05:29but basically it's the stiffest car.
05:30It's very stiff.
05:31Yeah.
05:32You say that while holding that.
05:33Okay.
05:34Yeah, it does seem quite roomy, doesn't it?
05:36Yeah, that was the goal,
05:37to have it roomy and with lots of features.
05:39So infotainment, connectivity, trunk space,
05:42electrically adjustable seats,
05:43electrically adjustable steering column.
05:45So it's not like a one trick pony
05:46just for driving fast on a straight line.
05:48Is there a motor on each wheel or is it two on an axle?
05:51It's two on an axle.
05:52So the motors are between the axles
05:54and then you have two gearboxes between the motors
05:56and the drive shafts going out of the motors.
05:58And we are controlling each one independently.
05:59Basically, a motor controls a wheel.
06:01Yes.
06:02And so you can do what you want with each wheel.
06:04So it's not like using the ESP or anything like that
06:06or any diff, it's just you tell each wheel
06:09how much torque to deliver.
06:10Everything changes when you change the modes.
06:12And that's why we have this big knobs in there.
06:14If you are changing big stuff in the car,
06:15so we wanted you to feel like big click when you do that.
06:18That's not hidden away in some menu, it's these.
06:20So here with this one.
06:21Oh yeah, I can see it, yeah.
06:22You change the mode here, front wheel drive only.
06:24So take.
06:25Who wants that?
06:26So rear power, you can have front power now at 100.
06:28So now you have a very fast Golf.
06:30Yeah, it's for when your mum's driving it.
06:33We are just scratching the surface
06:35with what you can do with this.
06:35You can endlessly tweak the system
06:38and especially with so many cameras
06:39and all of that upgrade capability,
06:41the customers can get all of these new features
06:43all the time.
06:44So you talked at the very beginning
06:45about the performance, the power, 1,900 horsepower.
06:48Will there be a thing in future like Tesla did
06:50where you can increase the power of the car?
06:52Have you done it at 19?
06:54Because you know, maybe we want to be able
06:55to make it do 2,000.
06:57We have potential to have much more performance, yes.
07:00Right, I get it.
07:01Yeah.
07:02Okay, okay.
07:03Yeah, and we are like now at 95% performance of the car
07:06of what we wanted to achieve for production.
07:08And we can go beyond that and improve it further.
07:11But we want to have something that really works
07:13and what's reliable.
07:14And then we can, you know, push the edge.
07:15I suppose it's a good thing
07:16if you're a buyer of one of these cars,
07:17you're not going to have another version
07:20that's more powerful come out.
07:21If you increase the power,
07:22you'll be able to make your car that car.
07:24Is that correct?
07:25Exactly, with software.
07:26With software, cool.
07:27Well.
07:28Then I guess you should have a go.
07:30I should definitely have a go.
07:31I should definitely have a go.
07:36Okay, so you're probably wondering,
07:37Matt, where's the bit where you drive the Rimac?
07:40Well, if you want to see me drive the Rimac,
07:41you're going to have to click on that window there.
07:43Cause I've done a drag race with the Nivera
07:45against a Ferrari SF90 for Car Wow.
07:48It's an amazing race.
07:49My favorite one yet.
07:51If you'd rather watch a track battle with the Yaris GR,
07:53then you can watch that up there.
07:55And as ever,
07:56please make sure you subscribe to this channel
07:57and hit the bell icon to turn your notifications on.
08:00I'm going to be doing loads more content on this channel
08:02and you don't want to miss out.
08:04See you soon.