How a $2 million electric hypercar gets crash tested

• The upcoming Rimac C_Two is an all-electric hypercar that can go from 0 to 60 in just 1.85 seconds.
• A limited run of 150 units will be sold starting at $2 million each
• They have to crash test it hundreds of times with just 12 units

Following is a transcript of the video.

Narrator: This is the $2 million Rimac C_Two, an upcoming all-electric hypercar that's projected to hit 0 to 60 in just 1.85 seconds. And this is one smashing headfirst into a wall. Just like any other car, the C_Two has to be crash tested before all 150 units can be manufactured and sold. But how do you crash test a hypercar without losing millions of dollars?

Mate Rimac: Developing a very expensive, low-volume hypercar is not that different from a high-volume family vehicle when looking at the safety. So we have basically to do the same test, which means hundreds and hundreds of tests, or actually thousands of tests. The problem is, with the low-volume production that we have, it's hard to justify to produce many cars in the testing phase. Actually, big car companies would produce the same amount of cars that we will produce in total, for customers and everything included, just for their testing program. We have to condense that to fewer vehicles, 12 cars in different stages of development.

Narrator: So, how does Rimac make just 12 cars last hundreds of tests? The C_Two is built around a carbon-fiber monocoque. This means its backbone is one giant carbon-fiber cell that houses the passengers. This much safer and reliable design has quickly made its way into modern hypercars like Bugatti and Koenigsegg. Rimac's claimed its monocoque to be the stiffest structure ever put in a road car, tougher than a Le Mans race car, and three times as strong as a traditional road car.

The C_Two's monocoque is surrounded by aluminum crash structures in the front and rear. Crash structures, or crumple zones, are the sections at the front and rear of the car designed to absorb as much of a crash impact as possible before it reaches the cabin. In a majority of crashes, including those Rimac performs during testing, only these aluminum parts are affected, and can easily and affordably be replaced right away. The battery pack is also a structural part of the car that sits in the middle of the monocoque. It would require an accident far beyond what's tested here or at a third party to damage the battery.

Rimac: So, you might think that maybe the crash-test cars cost a lot less. Well, actually, as they are prototypes and there's lots of parts made in a way that are not, let's say, production spec, and you have a lot of special tooling and 3D printing and stuff like that, it's actually more expensive to crash those cars and then replace the parts over and over again after every test, that each crashed car is actually more than $2 million.

Narrator: So, what does the crash-test process look like? The first phase is done using computer simulations. Here, the team can really go wild, experimenting with all kinds of vehicle layouts and materials. As a multimillion-dollar car, the C_Two requires hundreds of simulations before engineers settle on a design.

Once a design for the car's frame and chassis has been chosen, physical tests can begin. The car's crash structures are put on a sled and rammed into a wall. The team looks to make sure the vehicle's build and the materials are suitable. Once enough data is collected and engineers are satisfied, it's time for the next phase, testing prototypes.

In the first test, electronic components are replaced with dummy parts of the same size and weight to keep results accurate and costs low. Using data from these tests, the team develops a prototype with a fully functioning drivetrain. These cars will be crashed at higher and higher speeds, from 10 to 50 miles per hour, until they are ultimately destroyed. Rimac uses prototypes that only have the front or rear body work of the car attached in order to save time and money. These prototypes are what engineers hope to use for the final production. Only after the team approves of this model can they begin homologation, where fully completed cars are tested in front of third-party authorities, who decide whether the vehicle meets safety standards.

By now, Rimac has reached the homologation phase, and it won't be long before the C_Two is street ready. But no matter how safe and technologically advanced Rimac can build the C_Two to be, watching a $2 million car get smashed to bits will always be painful.