Sometimes it just doesn’t matter how good of a car you make.
Rimac may have proven that a true electric hypercar was possible when it unveiled the Nevera in 2021, but it’s unlikely to build another one, reports Autocar. That’s because CEO Mate Rimac says the company has yet to sell out of the EV’s 150-car production run.
The Nevera showed that any concerns about sports cars, supercars, and hypercars being unable to survive the electric revolution were unnecessary. Rimac’s first production vehicle, an evolution of the C_Two concept, paired an audacious design with a quad-motor powertrain that pumped out 1,914 hp and obliterated internal combustion records. That’s why it made our list of the 25 greatest supercars of the century.
The Rimac Nevera has set its fair share of records since debuting in 2021
Rimac
As impressive as the Nevera may be, sales have been anything but quick, the executive revealed during the Financial Times’s “Future of the Car” summit. Rimac pledged to build 150 examples when the car was unveiled, but build slots are still available nearly three years later despite the Nevera being the “best-selling electric hypercar.”
It would seem that the market Rimac and other automakers were anticipating for high-performance EVs just might not be there. There are several factors for this, but the executive feels the chief one is that the buyers his company is going after don’t follow trends. They are also resistant to spending seven figures on a vehicle that looks, feels, and handles differently than the high-end performance cars they fell in love with in the first place.
“At that time, we were thinking electric cars would be cool in a few years—the best cars, or with the highest performance and so on,” Rimac is quoted as saying. “We notice 1715197022 that as electrification is becoming mainstream, people at the top end of the sector want to differentiate themselves.”
That doesn’t mean Rimac, which owns a majority stake in Bugatti, is giving up on EVs. It’s just plans to focus its resources on building cars that stand out from the pack and are the “most exciting at the time.” Because of this, its next vehicle may have a traditional powertrain or be powered by something different, like nanotube technology.
Expect this same philosophy to inform the decision-making process at Bugatti as well. The French marque is developing an EV but has no intention to stop selling ICE cars at any point in the near future.
