Bad News, Wintersports Enthusiasts! The 2,300-hp Koenigsegg Gemera's Top Speed Is 186 Mph

“There’s a sensor, and it doesn’t drive faster than 300 kph with the ski box on. It wasn’t rocket science. It was moving things around and getting them in the right place to fit. What is a bit rocket science is maybe the transmission. Now we have four carry-ons in the back and a V8.“ (Christian von Koenigsegg on the Gemera).

A V8 with 2,300 horsepower on tap, to be specific. It is, of course, the Koenigsegg Gemera, one of the – if not the absolute – craziest automobiles ever made. Why is that? Bluntly simple: it’s the culmination of mind-blowing tech, neck-breaking performance, and user-friendliness. The two-door, four-seat, eight-cup-holder luxury speed demon is in a class of its own, and nobody on Planet Piston (or its Electron asteroid where BEVs live) can hold a candle to this Koenigsegg.

During the Monterey Car Week event, Christian von Koenigsegg was kind enough to give a YouTuber an insight into this marvelous engineering performance that is the Gemera. A car that, in its creator’s own words, a driver can daily anywhere without any worries about range, noise, emissions, or the drinks getting at a temperature where the occupants of the Gemera can’t enjoy them.

The emphasis on the apparently-primitive cupholders isn’t without reason: Koenigsegg has built eight separate spaces for putting away the tea cup or soda can so that every person in the cockpit can fully savor the beverage of their choice at the optimal temperature.

Simply put, there’s hot drinks storage space, and there’s refrigeration cup holding: 50°C (122°F) is the top of the 'hot' setting – which is neatly close to the optimal serving temperature for hot food and drink, according to international culinary standards – and 6°C (43°F) is the lowest point.

The fact that there’s less than an inch dividing a 44°C (111°F) difference in temperature is amazing in itself. The technology behind this is about as intricate as the Gemera’s outrageously advanced powertrain. Although it doesn’t look like it, developing the cupholders was one of the most complex projects during the Gemera’s engineering.

Click play on the video below to learn from Christian von Koenigsegg himself what’s what about his new car that has no rival anywhere in the car universe. Koenigsegg has made the most check-mate move since the first megacar with a power-to-weight ratio of 1:1 in 2013.

The transmission, for instance, is a slap on the face of every single automaker. It’s the equivalent of high-end watchmaking for gearboxes. Take this literally, please, because the nine-speed assembly of cogs and bevels is as far away from mainstream carmaking as the Gemera is from the rest of the market.

The gearbox wraps around the V8, and Koenigsegg gained space by designing a sophisticated transmission. The mega-GT engineers removed two electrical motors and two inverters, saving enough space to allow a cargo bay large enough to fit an adult in it. Named after the ‘useful complication’ that is the Tourbillon mechanism in horologers’ verbatim, the revolutionary Koenigsegg transmission offers those nine speeds, no flywheel or clutch, and complete interchangeability between combustion or electric driving modes.

Indeed, the 2,300-hp volcano can go as quiet as any other electric car on the market or erupt in full V8 rapid-fire mode. And yet, despite the powertrain’s complexity, the Gemera is a very user-friendly family automobile. Sure, it does have the Dark Matter, the first six-flux electric motors in the auto industry.

Fifteen inches in diameter – around 38 centimeters – and five inches thick (13 cm), the raxial flux motor – a company’s patent combining radial and axial flux operating principles in one assembly – delivers 600 kW of power (around 800 hp) and 922 lb-ft of torque (1250 Nm). Oh, and it weighs some 80 lbs (39 kg).

Another Koenigsegg mystery is how exactly the compact and lightweight motor outputs that amount of power. Suffice it to say that, combined with the 5.0-liter V8’s 1,500-hp, 1,106 lb-ft (1,500 Nm) firepower, the Dark Matter puts the Gemera in a class of its own.

Not a metaphor – can you think of another car that has comfortable space for four adults, hits 250 mph (400 kph), is four-wheel drive (with four-wheel torque vectoring), and can cruise for 600 miles (970 km) on a full tank. That’s because the Gemera can take on 30 gallons of fuel (115 liters). The mega-GT, as Koenigsegg calls it, has no rival. There is no other car like it.

Three hundred will be made, and the Swedes will get some of the pre-production units out in the next six months. Those early Gemeras are already on the assembly lines, and regular production cars will roll out at the end of 2024.

Apart from extreme speed adrenaline, the ultra–quick GT offers a neat set of creature comforts, starting with the hardtop-style design that removes the B-pillar. This feature serves a practical purpose, allowing easy entry and exit for the rear-seat passengers. The clip-on roof rack mounts have sensors that limit the car’s top speed to 300 kph (186 mph) if the sky box is detected on the vehicle.

Each row of seats has its separate infotainment screen (with Apple Car Play for each), and the 11-speaker sound system is probably as high-end as the rest of the car. Two induction phone charging pads, USB ports, self-parking capability, and a ‘bird’s eye view’ parking assist are standard technology in regular family sedans. But can you name another family sedan that will hit 60 in less than two seconds?