► Most powerful Lucid Air tested on track
► 1234bhp, 1431lb ft and 0-62mph in 2.0 seconds
► On sale in Europe now (from €250,000) but no plans for the UK market
There are more obvious ways of showing off the engineering marvel that is the Lucid Air Sapphire, but that wouldn’t be the Lucid way. Instead, this is a car that’ll bamboozle you with stealth.
We’ve only driven it on track but, like the Porsche Taycan Turbo GT, it’s an EV that dazzles in its capabilities on a circuit, far more than you’d expect of its 2.4-tonne kerb weight.
At a glance
Pros: Great front-end grip, pace, impressive body control for something that weighs this much, real-world efficiency
Cons: Pricey even for a warp-speed EV, slightly generic styling
What’s new?
Running a tri-motor set-up (two at the back, one at the front – that’s one more than the most powerful ‘normal’ Air), Lucid’s engineers have been through the base Air with a fine-tooth comb to maximise the performance capabilities without fundamentally undoing the Air’s long-legged efficiency.
As such, it’s got stiffer springs front and rear, new damper settings, different tyres (standard Michelin Pilot Sport 4S, optional Pirelli P Zero Trofeo R) on asymmetrical wheels (20-inch at the front, 21 at the rear), more aero (the ducktail spoiler and strakes under the floor), 27 per cent stiffer rear anti-roll bar, recalibrated traction control and all-new torque vectoring. Even the camber angle has been changed.
What are the specs?
Impressive, considering it’s a four-seat saloon with enough luggage space to easily haul the family off to the airport.
1234bhp, 1431lb ft and a 0-62mph time of 2.0 seconds are the stand-outs and easily enough to shame the Porsche Taycan Turbo GT. But let’s not ignore some of the more relevant-to-actual-real-life stats like a claimed 3.3 miles per kWh figure. It gives the car a claimed range of 431 miles thanks to the 118kWh battery.
What’s it like to drive?
Let’s clear up one thing straight away – it’s quick but not quite as ludicrous as you’d expect. Without the noise and the gears, it lacks the shock and awe of a high-powered ICE car and I’ve been in mega EVs that curdle your insides more effectively. Perhaps my mind has been scrambled by pick-ups that can hit 60mph in 2.6 seconds (thanks, Tesla) or maybe it’s because we were on a track where the reference points were a long way back. But it’s not quite the mind-scrambler I thought it would be.
But as a car to wield around a technical set of corners, it’s quite something. There are three power modes to choose from when you’re in track mode – drag strip, hot lap and endurance – which are all designed to maximise the power and battery cooling or warming depending on the use case. We’re in endurance today but even then are limited to 2.5 hot laps and then a cool down half lap in order to manage all the system temperatures.
What sticks in my mind is the control the car has. No part of it seems to get away from the other – despite weighing 2.4 tonnes, it doesn’t suffer from any significant weight transfer through a left/right flick and the front-end grip is good. If you’re gentle with the inputs – this is not a car to hustle – then it rewards with a balance and response that would feel familiar to Taycan owners. It lacks the last bit of feel that the Taycan manages, but it’s marginal.
Of course you have to manage the Lucid by being gentle on the throttle rather than smashing it into the floor mid-corner, but even then there’s a delicacy to the chassis that is remarkable given the size of it, with a lovely rotation through a corner. Is that the bespoke torque vectoring at work? It’s hard to tell in the limited laps we had.
Top tip – wind the traction control back to ‘track’. My first outing had all the systems fully on but the brakes had a weird habit of holding on even after you’ve released the pedal in this setting. Track removes that nannying layer.
Comfort? As I’ve said, I only drove it at the Ascari circuit so couldn’t tell you what the ride comfort is like. A short trip down an access road at 25mph gave a sense of a stiffer front end but not unbearably so.
What’s it like inside?
Very impressive.
Much like the Chinese have proved that you don’t need decades of building cars to make something of real solidity, so with Lucid. The rich mix of materials works well and the curved instrument binnacle looks smart across the dash. It gives an impression of a car that is different but not irritatingly so.
There’s another screen towards the bottom of the centre binnacle which has large icons and a simple menu but is quite a long way down from your dead ahead view. It means your eyes have to drop away from the road to operate it, which isn’t ideal.
Rear seat passengers are as well catered for as in a LWB Mercedes S-Class or BMW i7. The floor doesn’t get the Air Pure’s ‘foot garages’ because the Sapphire’s larger battery fills those gaps, but that’s only a minor gripe. It would make a great long distance cruiser no matter where you sit.
And because of all the clever packaging, the boot and frunk are the same size as the base car’s – CAR’s Tim Pollard tested the normal Airs last year and could even sit in the frunk.
Before I buy
Here comes the main hitch with the Lucid Air, be it in Sapphire or Air spec: you can’t buy one in the UK. European sales are slowly creeping up – Belgium and Denmark are the latest countries to be added to the list – but Lucid doesn’t have any plans to launch it in Blighty.
The Gravity SUV that’s just launched in the US might be different and Lucid execs hinted that it may even get the Sapphire treatment but for now British drivers will have to make do with staring longingly at our European and American cousins.
Verdict
As a feat of engineering, it’s up there with the best BMW M cars or Porsches. Yes, it’s heavy but the way that the car disguises its weight is mighty impressive, with the sort of deftness of touch that shouldn’t be possible in something this large.
It’s not cheap but then what mega-powered EV is. As a marker as to what Lucid is capable of, it’s the Ying to the base Air’s efficiency Yang. This breadth of ability bodes well for the company’s future.