While you may have seen the Model S Plaid and Air Sapphire drag racing before
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00:00 [MUSIC]
00:13 Since 2021, the Tesla Model S Plaid has held the title of
00:16 quickest accelerating production car that we've ever tested.
00:21 It has been without a real challenger until now.
00:26 Lucid Sapphire, based on the air, which already claims better range and
00:31 a more luxurious interior than the Model S.
00:35 Sapphire brings the addition of a third motor and a few hundred extra horses.
00:39 [MUSIC]
00:42 What you're looking at are two of the quickest vehicles on the planet.
00:47 [MUSIC]
00:57 You've probably seen videos of Lucid and
01:03 Tesla's drag racing against one another before.
01:06 But I can guarantee you haven't seen this.
01:09 [MUSIC]
01:38 We ran this race a few times, but the result was always the same.
01:42 The Sapphire had won it by the quarter mile.
01:44 By the time they got to the half, it was out in front all on its own.
01:48 However, that doesn't quite tell the whole story.
01:51 In the summer of 2023, Tesla rolled out the Track Pack upgrade.
01:56 The Track Pack brings larger forged aluminum wheels along with uprated tires,
02:01 calipers, and carbon ceramic brakes.
02:03 With those in place, Tesla engineers will patch the software in your Plaid and
02:07 finally allow you to hit the car's top speed, 200 miles per hour.
02:13 We had asked Tesla to loan us a 2024 Track Pack Plaid.
02:17 But as Tesla famously doesn't have a PR department, that request went nowhere.
02:22 We had to settle for a standard non-Track Pack Plaid.
02:25 And so our Plaid was limited to 163 miles per hour.
02:31 Now, of course, that is an incredible speed in and of itself.
02:34 And the Tesla Model S hit that speed just after we crossed the quarter mile.
02:39 So if we were just doing a quarter mile drag race, we would never have hit that limiter.
02:42 But we went for the half mile.
02:44 Not that it made much of a difference, as the acceleration figures between the
02:47 standard and Track Pack Plaid are, according to Tesla, identical.
02:51 And as we saw, the Sapphire had comprehensively beat it through the quarter mile.
02:57 There's something ferocious about the way that Tesla puts down its power.
03:01 Even with the car set to drag race mode and in its full cheetah stance,
03:05 where the car's front end lowers down to load the front axle with weight
03:09 to help put power down during the launch, the car's acceleration is so rapid.
03:14 The front end lifts and the steering feels super light as you pull away.
03:19 I've never experienced anything quite like it.
03:22 So we've established that the Model S Plaid is a remarkably quick vehicle.
03:25 Of course, that goes without saying.
03:28 How does it drive?
03:29 How does it actually genuinely perform on the highways, back roads?
03:35 That's what we're going to find out.
03:36 Over the course of our three days with the Sapphire and the Plaid,
03:39 we did far more than just drag racing.
03:41 From extensive limit testing and range testing,
03:44 to driving the cars on all manner of roads and in different conditions,
03:48 we wanted to deep dive into comparing these two vehicles.
03:52 But first, I want to talk about the Lucid Sapphire.
03:58 The Sapphire sits above the GT Performance
04:01 as the top trim level of Lucid's first vehicle, the Air.
04:05 The GTP already had 1,050 horsepower.
04:10 That one only had two motors.
04:12 Here in the Sapphire, much the same as in the Model S Plaid,
04:16 we have three motors, one up front and two on the rear.
04:20 We've got a few extra horsepower as well.
04:22 In fact, this Lucid Sapphire has 1,234 horsepower.
04:28 And 1,430 pound feet of torque.
04:32 All of which means that I can do predictable this.
04:38 Oh, that's 100.
04:41 That's 130.
04:44 That's 150.
04:47 That's 170.
04:48 OK.
04:49 Oh, yeah.
04:51 Wow, wow, wow.
04:53 OK.
04:54 So same story in the Sapphire as in the Plaid.
04:58 It's ridiculous quick.
05:00 But the way it delivers the power I can already feel
05:02 is different.
05:03 Even though the GT Performance produced more horsepower
05:06 than the Plaid, it only had two motors.
05:09 During launches, when the car's front end would lift,
05:12 it would lose traction.
05:13 And with it, the ability to put power down at the front axles.
05:17 But with the addition of a third motor,
05:19 the Sapphire now has the capacity
05:20 to get the car launched without compromising on power.
05:23 And you've just seen it absolutely decimate
05:26 that Model S Plaid on the quarter and the half mile.
05:30 That doesn't tell the whole story.
05:32 So let's head out onto the roads now
05:33 where we can discuss the car's similarities,
05:36 their many differences, and discuss
05:38 why this might not be quite such a straightforward comparison
05:41 test as first meets the eye.
05:44 So we know that this car can do spectacular things
05:52 in a straight line.
05:53 But how is it dynamically?
05:54 Well, I'm afraid to say it's a little bit of a nightmare.
05:59 As you can see, any corner that I'm faced with,
06:01 I'm slightly apprehensive.
06:03 I don't quite know how much steering to give it,
06:05 how much brakes to give it, how much I should be on or off
06:08 the gas.
06:09 It's all just a little bit messy.
06:11 And I think the culprit is really the yoke.
06:14 That is the sort of start of all of my problems with this car.
06:18 I find the steering to be super unbalanced.
06:20 It's really, really sharp.
06:23 The moment you get off center, the car
06:25 is moving quite aggressively in both directions.
06:29 And that's not what you want when
06:31 you've got over 1,000 horsepower at your disposal.
06:35 The suspension, well, I don't even know what to say.
06:38 It's sort of all at once springy and hard, but kind of mushy.
06:41 It just doesn't really, again, inspire any confidence.
06:45 The brakes, a little bit wooden.
06:48 There's no feedback in the pedal.
06:49 And that is just, I mean, not great.
06:54 I don't know what else to say.
06:55 It is not really a driver's car, this.
06:58 Is it a drag race car?
07:00 Yeah, yeah.
07:00 We've shown that it is pretty spectacular in a straight line.
07:03 But other than that, I just find it a little bit
07:06 all over the place.
07:07 You do get more road feedback from the Tesla
07:10 than you do in the Sapphire.
07:12 And that's great.
07:15 But there is a downside to that, too.
07:17 And that is that this car tramlines spectacularly.
07:21 If there are any real imperfections in the road,
07:24 especially if you're in a corner,
07:26 you do feel that the car all of a sudden
07:28 lurches into those voids and little cracks.
07:31 And all of a sudden, you're going in a direction
07:33 that you didn't put the car in.
07:35 Now, that, again, is very disconcerting.
07:37 Tesla's superpower is their ability to innovate.
07:40 However, the risk they run in trying
07:42 to be the first to market with these innovations
07:45 is putting out a product that is half-baked.
07:48 That's how we feel about the Yoke.
07:51 Without a steer-by-wire system to help modulate it,
07:53 depending on the application, the Yoke
07:55 makes the car hard to maneuver at low speeds
07:57 and unsettles it when you're going quick.
08:00 The Cybertruck, which has just been released,
08:02 has steer-by-wire.
08:04 It also has a revised Yoke design, which looks a lot more
08:07 like a steering wheel.
08:08 In their excitement to get the Yoke to market in the Plaid,
08:11 did Tesla sacrifice the car's dynamic road handling?
08:14 It's also worth noting that Tesla quietly began
08:17 offering the Plaid with a more conventional steering wheel
08:19 as standard after some customer feedback.
08:22 The Yoke is now a $1,000 option.
08:26 It strikes me that the Plaid is an update away
08:28 from being a much, much better car.
08:31 We recently saw that with the Model 3 Highland,
08:34 which received a nose-to-tail refresh,
08:36 including suspension re-engineering,
08:38 as well as an interior refresh, including added sound denning,
08:42 something the Model S could sorely use.
08:45 We've established that the Plaid is spectacular
08:47 in a straight line and not so great going around corners,
08:50 but of course, up until recently,
08:53 there's not been anything to directly compare it to.
08:55 Now we have the Lucid Sapphire.
08:57 So let's jump in that on the same road, same conditions,
09:00 and see how the two compare.
09:02 We're back in the Sapphire, and can you hear that?
09:07 Silence.
09:09 Well, relative silence.
09:11 And that is because the interior of this car acoustically
09:14 is so much more settled and sorted and silent
09:18 than the Model S Plaid,
09:20 something I hadn't really noticed
09:22 until I got out of that car and into this one.
09:24 All of the road noise that was coming up,
09:27 I could hear and feel the vibration through the tires.
09:29 I could hear the rocks coming up off those sticky tires
09:31 and hitting the underside of the wheel wells.
09:34 Whereas here in the Lucid, comparatively, it's serene.
09:38 It's calm. It's peaceful.
09:40 It's luxurious.
09:41 And that, I think, is a big, big point,
09:44 which is to say that the Model S
09:47 has always been touted as a luxury EV.
09:49 Well, I'm afraid to say this Lucid,
09:52 and specifically the Sapphire I'm in now,
09:54 has kind of thrown that into perspective.
09:57 It really has redefined what a luxury EV super sedan is.
10:02 There's a big caveat, of course,
10:05 in that this car costs over twice the price
10:09 of the Model S Plaid.
10:11 But interior aside, let's talk driving impressions.
10:14 That's what we care about after all.
10:16 And I'm afraid to say, Tesla fans,
10:19 it's a clean sweep for the Sapphire.
10:20 The steering is impeccable.
10:22 The brake, confidence-inspiring.
10:25 The way that the power, the torque,
10:26 and the horsepower are fed in as you hit the pedal,
10:31 it's spectacular.
10:33 It really is.
10:34 You can tell that Lucid had this car ready to go
10:38 and then said, "You know what?
10:39 "We're gonna keep developing it.
10:40 "We're gonna keep dialing it in."
10:41 That accounts for that year
10:43 between when we drove the engineering car
10:45 and now.
10:46 They really used that time well to dial this car in,
10:50 which I think is a responsible move
10:51 given that this car has over 1,200 horsepower
10:55 and 1,400 pound-feet of torque.
10:57 Dare I say it's one of the best driving cars
11:00 I've ever had the pleasure of driving.
11:03 It really is settled.
11:05 And I never once feel like the car is taking me somewhere
11:08 I don't wanna go.
11:10 The feedback from both the brake and the accelerator pedal
11:13 is really nicely dialed in.
11:15 Steering is beautifully weighted.
11:18 Whether you've got it in comfort or sport mode,
11:20 it's still really responsive.
11:24 It's great.
11:25 The Plaid is sort of like the Dodge Challenger Hellcat
11:29 of the EV world.
11:31 It's a decade-old platform
11:33 that's been given as much power as possible
11:35 with not a lot of thought going into anything else.
11:39 But hey, for the price, it's got one hell of a party trick.
11:44 The Lucid Air is proof that Tesla is no longer the leader
11:47 in EV technology.
11:49 The Sapphire drives farther, charges faster,
11:52 and accelerates quicker than the Plaid.
11:55 You get a sense that with the Plaid,
11:56 Tesla set out with the aim of making a vehicle
11:59 that could do a zero to 60 in less than two seconds.
12:02 Whereas Lucid is selling a car
12:03 that's designed to deliver incredible performance
12:07 in handling, braking, and acceleration
12:10 without compromising daily civility.
12:12 The elephant in the room is, of course,
12:16 that this Lucid Sapphire is over twice the price
12:20 of a Model S Plaid,
12:22 which makes this comparison really tricky.
12:24 We are quite sure that this is a better vehicle,
12:29 but is it twice as good?
12:30 Well, maybe.
12:33 But at that MSRP, the Tesla is very impressive.
12:38 It's just compromised.
12:40 And when we're talking about vehicles
12:42 that can do in excess of 200 miles an hour,
12:44 I'm not sure I want to be driving a compromised one.
12:47 It's like that old saying,
12:50 if you want to go quick, buy a Tesla.
12:53 But if you want to go far, but also very, very quick,
12:58 buy a Lucid.
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