This is a story about how to build the fastest luxury car in the world, or the world’s most luxurious hypercar. It’s a buddy documentary about a super rare, technologically advanced gas-electric hybrid car that can go more than 250 miles per hour—and the well-spoken Swedish guy whose name it bears.
Development of the multimillion-dollar Koenigsegg Regera comprises all of those storylines, and a few more. That’s why we keep flying east, across the Atlantic Ocean, to Koenigsegg’s headquarters in Ängelholm, Sweden, to shoot new seasons of /INSIDE KOENIGSEGG. The company’s founder, Christian Von Koenigsegg, is the perfect host, digging deep to bring car nerds along on a magical technology ride. He loves to talk about the engineering behind his cars, and we love to sit on the floor, surrounded by Legos, pretending we’re him. I mean, we love to hear him talk.
The Koenigsegg Regera starts with a twin-turbo V8, then adds three electric motors and battery power to produce a total of 1,500 horsepower. A new hybrid powertrain technology, called Koenigsegg Direct Drive, invented by Christian von Koenigsegg and developed for the Regera by the Koenigsegg Advanced Engineering team, tosses aside the traditional gearbox. Instead, the system incorporates the e-motors and a hydraulic clutch-slip mechanism to manage power delivery without the added weight of a traditional transmission. It’s neat. Christian will describe how it works in an upcoming episode.
And that’s just a taste of what makes the Regera such a fascinating showcase of mechanical engineering, materials science, and sports car passion. In this episode of /INSIDE KOENIGSEGG, Christian introduces the Regera as a new product. Each week, as the the series progresses, you’ll see and hear the backstory about various systems, from powertrain to aerodynamics to materials tech to electronics and telematics. You won’t get a more comprehensive lesson in Koenigsegg anywhere else.
See you next week for more /INSIDE KOENIGSEGG. Only on The Drive.