After breaking 20 acceleration and braking world records, Rimac concluded the year 2023 by setting another top speed world record, but in REVERSE! The Rimac Nevera touched a speed of 171.34mph (275.74kmph) in reverse. The new record beats the earlier record set by Caterham 7 Fireblade in 2001, reaching a speed of 165.08kmph in reverse.
Theoretically, nearly every performance-oriented electric car can reach surprising speeds, both forward and reverse. Like a majority of electric cars, the Rimac Nevera has no transmission, making its 4 electric motors rotate at different speeds and directions. The result is that its powertrain can achieve a 0-160kmph sprint time of 3.21 seconds and 0-322kmph in under 11 seconds, both forward and backwards.
The Rimac Nevera set a new world record in the Time Attack Edition livery, which is limited to just 12 customers globally. Earlier this year, the same Time Attack Edition livery broke more than 20 acceleration and braking records in a single day, as well as the site of its record-breaking top speed run to 256mph (412km/h) at the Automotive Testing Papenburg facility in Germany.
Upon achieving the world record, Matija Renic, chief program engineer of Bugatti Rimac, said, “It occurred to us during development that Nevera would probably be the world’s fastest car in reverse, but we kind of laughed it off. The aerodynamics, cooling and stability hadn’t been engineered for travelling backwards at speed, after all. But then, we started to talk about how fun it would be to give it a shot. Our simulations showed that we could achieve well over 150mph but we didn’t have much of an idea how stable it would be – we were entering unchartered territory.”
Back in July, at the 2023 Goodwood Festival of Speed, the Nevera set a 49.32 second time during the timed Supercar Shootout, making it the fastest production car to have taken on the famous hill climb. The Rimac Nevera also broke the fastest production electric vehicle record at the Nurburgring, managing a lead of 20 seconds. The record was set on a stock vehicle running on Michelin Cup2R tires and was verified by independent timing data, TUV SUD and onboard telemetry.