The EV revolution made it stupidly easy to start a car company, at least on paper. Before the pandemic, it felt like a new 1,000-horsepower supercar was launched daily. A company needed to do something special to stand out from the slew of hypothetical hypercars.

That's precisely what Nio did. It built a few EP9s and went record-hunting. It set the fastest autonomous lap around the Circuit of the Americas and set the fastest time for an EV around the Nurburgring. Until recently, it held the lap record for the charge up the driveway at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

It's a stunning piece of engineering, and now the opportunity to own one has come up again via Bonhams.

This particular example has been to several international circuits, but it's not one of the record-breaking cars.

It is noteworthy, however. Since December last year, it has been part of a hypercar exhibit at the Petersen Museum. The exhibition included every important modern hypercar, including the Czinger 21C, Hennessey Venom F5, Rimac Concept One, Bugatti Veyron, Ferrari LaFerrari, and Koenigsegg Regera, to name just a few.

This EP9 was also hand-painted by Nicolai Sclater, also known as Ornamental Conifer. The LA-based artist is well-known for his vintage motorsport, graffiti, and hand sign artworks.

It's essentially a one-of-one, but there's a big catch.

This car is being sold without batteries and several mechanical components. It's not a big deal, as Nio can supply these items to get it racetrack-ready. As the EP9 was designed for track use only, it can't be registered for road use.

We think whoever buys this car will order the parts from Nio. It's a glorious track toy, and it can corner at 3G. The brakes are twice as powerful as those of a GT3 racing car. And you can take a friend along for the ride. The EP9 comes with an LCD display in front of the passenger to see whether you're scaring your friends adequately enough. It will show their real-time heart rate, one of the most incredible features ever.

The EP9 has one-megawatt power and 1,092 lb-ft of torque when fully equipped with four electric motors. It can sprint from 0-60 mph in 2.5 seconds and on to a top speed of 194 mph. Our favorite figure is the downforce. At 150 mph, there is 2.7 tons of downforce.

Nio also took a different approach to EV charging. Instead of plugging the car in, you simply drive to a Nio charging station, where the two depleted battery packs are swapped for fresh ones. The process takes roughly three minutes and costs $10. So far, Nio has done more than four million battery swaps. Not only is this charging method faster, but owners don't need to worry about the cost of a replacement battery since they don't own it.

The game has moved on since, and a four-door Tesla Model S Plaid is faster, but the EP9 is a more impressive feat of engineering.

The bid was still live at the time of writing, sitting on $150,000. It's estimated to sell for between $800,000 to $1.4 million when the online auction ends on October 3.