Each simulator (i.e., backend) supports different types of neurons, so it will depend on the device. Nengo Loihi is a purely neuromorphic backend and only supports the nengo.LIF and nengo.SpikingRectifiedLinear neuron types, so no, the rate-based model will not work run on hardware with Nengo Loihi. The reference simulator (nengo.Simulator), Nengo DL and Nengo OpenCL all work with rate-based models.