The last two years have seen the launch of ‘hyper’cars such as the Ferrari LaFerrari, Porsche 918 and the McLaren P1, the ones that are much more capable than the ‘super’cars and in today’s world are considered the holy trio of luxury performance motoring. They are the best of the best that money can buy today…or are they?
Swede Christian Von Koenigsegg like his majestic name begs to differ and has now put his money where his mouth is thanks to his latest quantum leaping ‘mega’car which is the Koenigsegg Regera.
Regera comes from the Swedish verb ‘to Reign’, but let’s be honest sounds more like crime-solving hound Scooby-Doo trying to pronounce the name of Koenigsegg’s other offering. As is the process with something this exciting, the details emerged a week before the car was to be officially unveiled with some of the most significant bits coming from Christian himself.
All jokes aside, let us get down to the real issue at hand which is that this is a 1500bhp+ luxury megacar which is capable of going from 0kmph to 400kmph in just 20 seconds! The average acceleration of the Regera can be pegged at about 10g making it the fastest accelerating car in the world (take that Hennessey!) The funny thing is that these achievements currently exist individually but until the Regera have never existed together in a single package.
This combustible orgasm of power comes courtesy (see what I did there) of a twin-turbo 5.0-litre V8 which produces about 1100bhp, a significant chunk of the 1500bhp total. Extracting 1000bhp or more from an engine is certainly not easy even for tuners and when it is done for a production engine – it certainly is an impressive achievement in itself.
Obviously Kung Koenigsegg felt that this was too main stream for a company that makes you twist your mouth in a funny way when you say its name and decided to throw in three electric motors to add more power. This trio is powered by a 9.27kWh, 620 Volt battery pack making it a potent combination. Two of them sit on the rear wheels while the third is connected to the crankshaft and works as the starter motor.
Well, if you thought this was outrageous, then the Koenigsegg Direct Drive will just knock you out. Koenigsegg Direct Drive - which has been invented by the Swedish automaker themselves - eliminates the need for a clutch and a gearbox altogether. The power unit transmits power to the rear axles through a hydraulic coupling with a 2.85:1 final gear reduction ratio which also limits the top whack of this car to 248mph. The hydraulic coupling filters out the spiky nature of power delivery that would otherwise had been absorbed by the clutch. The 180kw hub motors on the rear wheels are synchronised by the torque vectoring methodology which also doubles up as the differential, thus reducing the need of any more mechanical weight on the chassis.
Despite the overt focus on technology and speed, Koenigsegg have not skimped on the luxury in any manner and have outfitted the Regera with leather upholstery, climate control, electric seats and the AppleCarPlay infotainment system. The body closure functions can be operated via a smart phone making this the world’s first fully automatic car.
It also gets a fully foldable, active, top- mounted rear wing, Akrapovic exhaust system and more importantly can be driven with the roof open, something that Koenigsegg has been offering since the days of the CCR.
Koenigsegg will only make 80 units of the Regera which means that it is already sold out to existing Koenigsegg customers for a sum that we would probably never be able to truly find out.
