At the recent Auto Week in Monterey, Chief Program Engineer of Rimac Nevera, Matija Renić, made a statement that pushes the limits when it comes to electric hypercars accelerations. When asked how fast cars will reach 60 mph in the future he said “in less than a second.”
The development of electric cars was primarily aimed at endurance and range, but the development of technology allowed new companies, who saw their opportunity, to create new super fast electric cars. Currently, most cars reach 60 mph in 2.5 – 3 seconds, which is a big improvement from the not-so-distant past. But let’s talk about the fastest ones.
Let’s take Rimac Automobile for example. Their fastest car Nevera has 1,914 hp and 1,741 lb-ft of torque, which allows it to reach 60 mph in 1.85 seconds with a top speed of 258 mph (413 km / h). It is the result of long-term development, but also the pride of the Rimac company. “The car is very fast, really. The values are like that, we are proud of them, but the car is more than that. The car is not a specialist for one thing, it is not a dragster with which you will go to the track and achieve a record time,” said Matija Renić . The company is aware that creating a car that will reach 60 mph in less than a second will be a very difficult task, but the current cars show what automotive technology will be able to do in the future. The goal of Rimac Automobili was not a racing car, but a driver’s car, something that is very attractive and will reward the driver as soon as he hits the road and starts enjoying the drive.
Engine development and horse power will not be a problem, but something else looms as a major obstacle for current road cars, and that is the effect of g-force on the driver’s body. What allows race car drivers to withstand high g-force, especially when entering corners, is a specially designed cockpit. This is currently not possible with road cars, and if they want to reach acceleration under one second, new innovative solutions will have to be found. As an example, an acceleration of one second means a g-force of about 2.8, and half a second of nearly 6, which is more than the g-force that affects a pilot when taking off from an aircraft carrier.
Enthusiasm and hope are what pull engineers towards their goal. But how far are we actually from those “less than a second”?
Source: The Drive