The electric hypercar just pulled off a 8.55-second quarter-mile pass, a few hundredths quicker than the Rimac Nevera's

For the past year-and-a-half, the title of the world’s quickest quarter-mile pass pulled off in a production car belonged to the Rimac Nevera, a 1,900-plus-horsepower Croatian electric hypercar built by the fellow now also heading up Bugatti. Now that record has been stolen away by the fantastic Pininfarina Battista—which itself sits on a chassis and drivetrain co-developed by Rimac, and very similar in architecture to the Nevera.

The boutique Italian automaker’s Battista managed a 8.55-second pass down a 1,320-foot strip in India (its financial backers, Mahindra & Mahindra, are based out of the country) to best the Nevera’s 8.582-second quarter-mile record by three-hundreths of a second. Considering the cars have so much in common mechanically, perhaps that not that big a surprise. The trial was performed with development driver Stefano Costa at the wheel, in conjunction with Autocar India.

So what gives the Battista the edge over its cousin? Apparently a few differences in terms of the tuning of their shared powertrain components; as well as the superior aerodynamics of the Pininfarina’s Italian-styled bodywork.

The Pininfarina Battista also took this recent opportunity to set the world-record half-mile time, at 13.38 seconds—that’s about a half-second longer than it takes a new Nissan Z to pull off the quarter-mile, for reference. Pininfarina found a sprint from zero to 300 km/h (186 mph) took the Battista about 10.49 seconds; and that its top speed was roughly 358 km/h (222 mph) with the stock 350-km/h (217-mph) artificial limiter removed.

What truly makes the Battista the world’s flat-out quickest production car, though, is the fact that last November, it was allegedly able to manage a 1.79-second run in the all-important zero-to-97-km/h (-60-mph) test. The Rimac Nevera, by contrast, pulls off the same in about 1.85 seconds.

The Pininfarina Battista sends to its four Rimac-co-developed electric motors roughly 1,877 horsepower and 1,696 lb-ft of torque. On top of that, its US$2.4-million price tag places each of the 150 examples the automaker plans to build among the top-five most expensive new cars for sale today.

While it seems to outpace its sibling Nevera in most every measure, the Rimac still has the upper hand when it comes to overall speed: the Croatian car in November 2022 nabbed the world’s-fastest-production-EV title after a run to 412 km/h (258 mph). We’ll see how many, if any, of these records face challenges from the current world’s-most-powerful-production-car title-holder, the Lotus Evija; that 2,011-horsepower (in some trims) electric dynamo starts deliveries to customers this year.

I've been part of the Driving.ca team for five years, but have been writing about cars for more than twice that. Classics – like my first and currently only car, my 1971 Plymouth Valiant Scamp – are my favourite, but I love learning and writing about vehicular history, automotive design, and car culture.

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