10:26 02-06-2026
He drove a $2.5 million electric hypercar across Europe — just because he could
British explorer Chris Brown drove a Rimac Nevera 2,700 km from Yorkshire to Croatia. Four days, seven countries, one electric hypercar that refuses to behave like one.
Nobody really thinks of the Rimac Nevera as a car you can actually go somewhere in. It’s a track weapon, a record-breaking projectile, a closed-circuit toy. At least, that’s the assumption. British entrepreneur, traveller and explorer Chris Brown disagrees — and he just drove his electric hypercar roughly 2,700 km from North Yorkshire to the Croatian town of Trogir. Almost 2,000 horsepower, it turns out, work just fine on regular roads.
Departure: 28 May, Harrogate. Brown crossed the Channel via Le Shuttle, spent his first night near Brussels, and then refused to stick to the motorway. He routed via his own personal coordinates: the national poles of inaccessibility of Belgium and Luxembourg — the points within each country’s borders that lie furthest from the sea. Then came Bavaria, the medieval walled town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Munich, Austria, the alpine corridors of Slovenia, and an overnight at Lake Bled. Day four took the Nevera through Croatia, past Zagreb — Rimac’s home city — down to the Dalmatian coast. He arrived in Trogir just in time for the start of the Trailblazer Tour.
This obsession with geographical extremes isn’t a coincidence. Brown is pursuing the Eight Poles Project — an attempt to become the first person in history to visit all eight of Earth’s Poles of Inaccessibility. Seven are already in the bag: North and South America, Africa, Australia, Antarctica, Point Nemo in the South Pacific, and the Northern Pole of Inaccessibility in the Arctic. Compared with that, a detour through Belgium and Luxembourg is a warm-up.
On paper, the Nevera looks like anything but a touring car. Four electric motors deliver 1,914 hp and 2,340 Nm, 0–100 km/h takes 1.81 seconds, and the top speed is 412 km/h. The launch price was $2.5 million. The sharper Nevera R is even more aggressive: 2,107 hp, 1.72 seconds to 100 km/h and 430 km/h flat out. This is a machine for arguing with the laws of physics, not for a run to the beach.
The long haul, however, pulled out a different side of the car. Brown calls the Nevera spacious, quiet, comfortable — and genuinely manageable over long stretches.
“I’ve had nowhere near as much time as I wanted to really drive the Nevera. So when the invitation came to join the team in Croatia, I jumped at the chance to spend a few thousand kilometres behind the wheel. These four days just reaffirmed what I already knew: it’s an extraordinary achievement. Spacious, quiet, comfortable, hundreds of miles between charges — everything you want for a long road trip — while still delivering the kind of thrill of a proper hypercar. One of the most memorable journeys I’ve had.”
The 120 kWh battery delivers around 490 km of WLTP range, and a 0–80% top-up takes just 19 minutes on a 500 kW charger. On the road, Brown relied on the IONITY network: every Nevera owner gets eight years of unlimited free charging across 24 European countries. With deals like that, the line between hypercar and grand tourer starts to blur.
For Rimac, this story is worth more than any ad campaign. Company founder Mate Rimac has said it from day one: the Nevera was built as a Hyper GT, not a track-only weapon. Now that claim has been tested not over coffee and slides at a press launch, but on real borders, real charging stops and real European motorways.
In Trogir the journey doesn’t end — it begins its next chapter. Brown is joining the second annual Rimac Trailblazer Tour. Last year’s edition brought together nine Neveras for a four-day route through Croatia’s varied landscapes, finishing at the Roman amphitheatre in Pula. What this year will bring, we’ll find out soon enough.
The most surprising thing about this trip isn’t the speed. It isn’t even the distance. The Nevera has turned out to be a rare hypercar that you don’t need to show off. You can actually drive it somewhere.
You can follow Chris Brown’s travels on his websites inaccessibility.net and brown.co.uk.