The Venn diagram circles representing ultraluxurious four-door grand-touring vehicles and sports cars with sub-10-second quarter-mile acceleration have never intersected before. Add a third circle representing EVs with a range greater than 400 miles, and you’re in incomprehensible territory. Want to make things more challenging? Reduce the quarter-mile acceleration benchmark to nine seconds flat to up the ante. That is absurd, right? Nope. Introducing the Lucid Air Sapphire.
Outstanding Acceleration?
The purported performance of the Lucid would make the Sapphire faster than any vehicle we’ve tested. To see for myself, I maneuver a vehicle through the water box at Sonoma Raceway in California and position up on the slightly uphill drag strip. With the traction control off and the powertrain set to Track mode’s Dragstrip setting, which unlocks the full 1234 horsepower, I briefly floor the accelerator to generate tire heat on all four wheels, then back off and repeat. Returning to Drive, I approach the staging lights that activate the Christmas tree. After thoroughly applying the brake, I floor the accelerator, wait for the lights to turn green, and then sidestep the brake.
Unbelievably, the tires spin vaguely for a few dozen yards before truly connecting as the car accelerates up the track. The sensation of unrestricted acceleration is demonic, and when I pass the finish line and grab the clutches, the in-car GPS readout reveals some astounding numbers: 2.2 seconds to 60 mph and 9.28 seconds to the quarter-mile at 153 mph. It’s difficult to be disappointed by such epic performance, particularly considering that the Ferrari 296GTB plug-in hybrid we recently evaluated required 2.4 seconds to reach 60 mph and 9.2 seconds to complete the quarter at 150 mph. Then I realized that the wheelspin indicated an error. After the water-box burnouts, I was instructed to reengage traction control, but I did not.
Even more outlandish numbers: 60 mph in 1.9 seconds, 9.05 seconds at the stripe, and 154 mph. As the conditions improve, a later competitor achieves 8.95 seconds. We will not give the Sapphire a Major Award just yet due to the fact that these unofficial numbers were not generated using our standard method. We do not test on a slightly uphill drag strip from a slick start box with preheated tires that have just undergone water-box burnouts, and we do publish a two-way average to account for wind.
In any case. The Sapphire is indisputable evil.
Establishing Sapphire’s Road Course
On the road-racing circuit at Sonoma Raceway, a Lucid Air Grand Touring in front of me spins out of the narrower corners while applying full throttle. I met David Lickfold, the director of chassis and vehicle dynamics, when I piloted an Air Sapphire prototype a few months ago. He is exerting great effort to ensure that he does not hold me up in the faster Sapphire. It’s not working, as I’m barely fogging my visor while he’s all arms and elbows coping with tires that are beginning to shed thin strips of rubber. Soon thereafter, he gestures me past, ending the lead-follow pretext.
Although the 1234-hp Dragstrip power setting has been reduced to 767 horsepower in the Endurance track mode, which enables consecutive laps, I am not surprised to discover that the Sapphire has much more to offer. In between, there is a Hot Lap mode with 1003 horsepower for a single-lap time attack. The reinforced Air devours this technical circuit, which resembles Virginia International Raceway — where I sampled the prototype — in that it has numerous elevation changes, blind corners, and dubious crests that can unsettle a vehicle at the apex. On the eve of the first customer deliveries, the Sapphire’s three-motor powertrain feels completely tuned in, with none of the prototype’s traction-management teething issues.
In fact, Sonoma’s Carousel is remarkably similar to Virginia International Raceway’s Hog Pen final turn, and I am able to confidently plant my right foot as the long corner opens onto a blisteringly fast straight. A few seconds later, it’s time to apply the brakes—massive 10-piston front calipers and carbon-ceramic rotors—to bring the approximately 5400-pound Sapphire down to turn-in speed, then effortlessly feed on the power through the hairpin and rip through the esses, brushing the curbing on the way by.
In the interim, Back in the Real World
If you first drove a Sapphire on the street, none of the aforementioned would seem remotely conceivable, as it is perfectly at home on the nearby wine country byways, cruising in quiet comfort with the same grace as other Air sedans. The only notable aspect of the steering is the ultrasuede covering that connects the driver’s hands to a perfectly balanced level of feel and exertion. The performance seats of the Sapphire that held firm on the track are suitably comfortable, and their more aggressive bolstering does not interfere with relaxed driving.
The 1234-horsepower Dragstrip and 767-horsepower Endurance settings used on the track appear to be from another planet, as the Sapphire also purrs serenely and can deliver a fantastic 427-mile EPA combined range on the same staggered 20-inch front and 21-inch rear Michelin Pilot Sport 4S performance rubber (custom-tailored with the Cup 2 shoulder compound) that glued it to the strip and track. However, if you need to get past a gawking traveler, the Sapphire will do so with greater force than necessary.
How It Came About
The Sapphire’s existence was predetermined from the outset. Accordingly, the Air’s basic chassis stiffness and front five-link and rear integral-link multilink suspension geometry were devised. The capacity for three motors was reserved from the beginning, so the Sapphire’s rear trunk volume does not decrease by a single cubic foot. In addition, the dual-rear-motor upgrade is absurdly modular, with a second unit affixed nose-to-nose with the first and the mechanical differential removed because it is no longer required.
Lucid also decided against a combined brake lever, opting instead for a divide-and-conquer strategy that triggers regeneration solely via accelerator lift. This allowed the brake engineers to optimize the hydraulic brakes of all Airs for feel and response, which made the engineering of the Sapphire’s immensely powerful and communicative carbon-ceramic brake system much simpler. Moreover, the adaptive Bilstein dampers were originally specified to have the tuning bandwidth to accommodate Sapphire performance, so the required internal shock valving tuning modifications and adaptive-control software adjustments did not necessitate a switch to a different piece of hardware.
However, this is not the case with the stability and traction control systems. The supplier-supplied software was incapable of meeting the Jekyll-and-Hyde challenge posed by the Sapphire. While I was with them at VIR, I was unaware that Lucid was considering ditching the supplier option for the Sapphire in favor of in-house stability- and traction-control software. They possessed the intellectual capacity to write code for other vehicle systems, so why not this?
After this effort, it is evident that that decision was a wise one. However, there is more to the story. This exemplifies how Lucid’s willingness and confidence to go its own way and utilize its in-house expertise can produce remarkable results. When we realized the brilliance of their compact electric motors, batteries, and charge-management systems, we first had this impression. These first Airs offered Chevy Bolt-level efficiency in a BMW 7-series-sized luxury EV with a long wheelbase that provided unprecedented range and comfort. With the Lucid Air Sapphire, Lucid has completed the third circle of the Venn diagram, the one whose performance exceeds that of the Ferrari 296GTB. Damn.
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