The 1 Percent’s Electric Car: The $980,000 Rimac Concept_One

In life there will be most of us, and there will be the one percent. There will be those of us who fly in coach, and there will be those of us who have their own private jets. There will be those of us who enjoy our small homes, and those of us who dwell in luxury manors. When it comes to green cars, there will be those of us who drive the Prius, and those who drive the $980,000 Rimac Concept_One electric sports car.

We first brought you word of the very expensive Rimac Concept_One last year, when we reported about how this Croatian-built electric supercar would be capable of going 0 to 60 in just 2.8 seconds. The vehicle is now back again, reported Wired, being shown off recently at Top Marques Monaco, which is considered one of the world’s most exclusive car shows. Considering it is in Monaco, we don’t find that hard to believe.

The Concept_One, noted HybridCars, will only be available to 88 drivers. Those willing to pony up will get quite the green technology car, though not all might consider such a vehicle to have any environmental qualities at all. What you do get for your close to $1 million is a vehicle with 1,088 horsepower output and 250 kilowatt electric motors for each wheel.

Sporting a 92 kilowatt hour LiFeP04 battery system, the car has an impressive range of over 370 miles, making it a strong contender against other all-electric luxury companies like Tesla Motors — though with a much higher price tag to boot. The vehicle on the interior is tailored for comfort and looks to include a rear-view camera display, two side displays for the driver, and an interactive console display, which we assume is for non-essential features like stereo systems and GPS navigation.

The car, with its 1,180 pound feet of torque, also has some special tires from Vredestein that Rimac says “can guarantee superior road handling and performance with an elegant and stylish appearance.”  These tires will operate well on the vehicle’s limited by the manufacturer 185 MPH top speed. When asked why they limited it to this, Rimac said “it can go 500 kph [310 mph], but we can’t guarantee the passenger’s safety.”

–Nino Marchetti

This post originally appeared at EarthTechling and was republished with permission.