Lucid Air Sapphire is so fast it might just hurt a little

Cars have been judged on 0-60 mph times (or 0-100 kmh times if you’re in a country with the metric system) for decades but things have gotten a little weird in recent years. The instant power you get from electric motors has resulted in SUVs and other family cars from companies like Kia that are capable of roasting a Lamborghini off the line.

At the higher-end of the EV spectrum you have the likes of Rimac, Pininfarina, and Lucid, all of which produce vehicles with sub two-second 0-60 times. And it’s in those vehicles where things get a bit weird.

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You can only go so fast

A car crash kills you because the vehicle you’re traveling in goes from something like 60 miles per hour to 0 in a very short space of time. That’s one of the reasons crumple zones are so effective; as well as dissipating energy, it slows down that collision just a little bit.

Logically, this should work the other way too. A car could theoretically accelerate fast enough to subject your body to the kinds of G-forces you would experience in a crash and essentially turn you into a bag of soup. Even the quickest vehicles we have today aren’t anywhere near that point, but sub-2 seconds still feels a bit like a warning shot.

Experiencing a Lucid Air Sapphire at its best hurts a little

If you have some time in a Lucid Air Sapphire, and a clear stretch of road in front of you, then you’d be silly not to try out the vehicle’s launch control function. For those who are unaware, this feature lets the vehicle take over and accelerate as fast as it possibly can. You just have to cling on and try to keep the thing pointing in the right direction.

Naturally, I tried it out a few times when I had the opportunity and aside from the mind-blowing acceleration, one thing stood out. It hurt a bit. I’ve found you can be pressed back into your seat, with absolutely no room between you and the upholstery, and the thing will still somehow hit you in the back with a lot of force. It’s not the usual feeling of being pressed back into your seat, the vehicle’s weight just straight slams into you.

Getting there takes some engineering magic

So how do you make a vehicle that can crack its way through the two-second barrier? Well the answer is partially engineering and partially software-based. Esther Unti, Lucid’s Senior Manager of Controls Calibration explains both and says the obvious starting point is the car’s powertrain.

”The powertrain that we have in that car is really special. That’s the starting point, a bunch of engineers that work tirelessly to make a really neat dual rear motor then we use the second most powerful truck motor that we have at the front of the car for a combined total of torque and power that’s not commonly seen in a sedan.”

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1,234 horsepower goes a long way

In total, the three motors work in tandem to produce 1,234 horsepower, though that’s not all immediately available. The absolutely massive 1,430 lb-ft of torque that the motors produce is just as important.

While there is a tremendous amount of power sitting there, getting it on the road is a different matter. Unti explains how there isn’t an off the shelf solution that can get the most out of Lucid’s flagship EV so the company had to start from scratch.

Lucid’s in-house traction control does a lot of work

“We weren’t going to hit that below two second mark without a more responsive control of the motor torque. We went into the project using a supplier-based traction control that’s designed for gas engines. We needed a traction control system that could keep up with how quickly our motors produce torque, so we ended up bringing that system in-house,” Unti said.

The Lucid Air Sapphire can do more than sprint to 60

The “built from the ground up” software amounts to more than launch control. On top of controlling where the power goes, and how much of it is used, Lucid’s driving modes also manage the vehicle’s battery so it will be warm enough to perform at its best, and not pushed to the point where it will overheat.

For example, if you like going fast in a straight line then the “Dragstrip” setting “gets the battery at an optimal middle ground temperature for extracting max performance a few times in a row,” Unti explains. On the track, you have options. “Hot Lap” will maximize performance while “Endurance” will limit things in an attempt to get more distance from the vehicle before it needs to cool off.

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It is possible to make the Lucid Air Sapphire even faster

The Lucid Air Sapphire is already mind-meltingly quick. So quick that shaving off a few extra tenths will be essentially imperceptible to anyone driving it, but that doesn’t mean it can’t post better numbers. However, Unti explains that the software and motors aren’t currently the limiting factor.

“A lot of what is left on the table is tire technology. We see that across the industry, there’s a limit to how fast these cars can get going with the technology that’s available for tires, but that might change in the future,” she said.

But the standard rubber isn’t too bad

Although swapping out the standard tires for something wider and stickier may add a touch of pace, the fact that the Sapphire is so quick on road-legal rubber is an achievement in itself. “It’s the same tire that gets 427 miles of range” the engineer explained while referring to the Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires that come with the Sapphire as standard.

So there we have it, the Lucid Air Sapphire. A $250,000, sensible-looking sedan that can achieve class-leading range, take the kids to the park, and tear your face off when you need that little bit of excitement in your life.

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