By Dan Neil
Albert Einstein called it his happiest thought: Sitting at his desk in Bern, Switzerland, the young patent clerk mused that "if a man falls freely [in a failed elevator cab, for example] he will not feel his own weight." The equivalence principle observes that acceleration due to gravity is indistinguishable from acceleration from other inertial effects.
I only wish Einstein had been with me last month in California when I was testing the 2025 Lucid Air Sapphire and not just so he could work the navi system. This spacious and gracious, low and lovely luxury sedan -- unquestionably one of the finest sedans in history -- generates elite-level inertial effects, which buyers can enjoy when they're on leave from astronaut school.
How would the greatest physicist in history react to the Sapphire? Would he be enthralled by the car's power-dense AC synchronous motors and begin rambling on about James Clerk Maxwell and the triumph of field theory? Or would he fumble pitifully with the touch screen or try to light his pipe with the volume control? We may never know.
Lucid Motors -- a California-based, Saudi-backed luxury-electric automaker, with manufacturing in Arizona -- began production of the Air sedan in late 2021. The four-door, five-seater is available in four specifications, with four battery sizes and one to three motors. The Air Pure starts at $69,900 and advertises 420 miles of range, quick charging and a non-trivial 430 hp. The Grand Touring ($110,900) claims a whopping 512 miles of range, 819 hp and a recharge rate equivalent to 200 miles of range in 12 minutes.
But our car -- the triple-motored, 1,234-hp Sapphire -- is God's flyswatter. Testing on a prepared dragstrip earlier this year, Car and Driver extracted a 0-60 mph acceleration of 1.9 seconds, which noses out the Tesla Model S Plaid for the title of world's quickest production sedan. Subsequent figures of merit include the Sapphire's NHRA-worthy 9.3-second elapsed time in the quarter-mile and a trap speed of 153 mph.
The Lucid's version of equivalence states that in the first few seconds of a full-power pass, the car is pulling harder longitudinally than had young Albert and I fallen vertically off a cliff, Thelma and Louise-style (terminal velocity notwithstanding).
I didn't need to go that hard. At a stop sign deep in the Central Valley, with miles of empty road ahead, I tapped on the Track mode icon -- accessing full power and recalibrating the car's dynamics/handling/braking control loops for maximum effort. The multi-map Track mode also offers an integrated launch-control program, if drivers desire. I don't, usually. As Maxwell's silver hammer is poised to strike, the cabin swells with eerie hosannas and ghostly electronic howls. Looking left-right, left-right and clenching various muscle groups, I floored it.
The next few moments were intense, even a bit disorienting, as my squishy internal structures were rudely mapped onto the Sapphire's rapidly accelerating reference frame -- a convulsive, sneeze-like lurch, a burst of there-not-here, a vanishing. Whoosh. Gawd dang, car.
If you were to ask Lucid's CEO Peter Rawlinson what's the point of performance that makes people sick to their stomach, he'd likely tell you that's just the way of the global super-luxury car business, with bucks-up buyers spending a fortune on bragging rights. It's widely understood that 0-60 mph acceleration is a lousy benchmark by which to judge the worth of an automobile, never mind a company. And yet Lucid can't win by being slower than the relevant Tesla, can it?
From the driver's seat, the miracle is not that the Sapphire can match these world-flogging, gut-churning expectations, but the result is so uncompromised on account of them. Sure, I've been in faster and quicker cars but they all had roll cages, parachutes and Halon fire-suppression systems. Perhaps the broad Michelin Pilot Sport 4S Summer tires (20/21-inch, front/rear) might thrum and trammel a bit on the interstate. Bear in mind the Sapphire has a top speed of 205 mph. You're going to want rubber.
Meanwhile, compared to its performance, the Sapphire's stealth might as well be Jedi magic. This is not the droid you're looking for, officer.
There are a handful of internal-combustion road cars that can keep up with the Sapphire -- a couple of McLarens, the Gordon Murray Automotive T.50, a Porsche or two -- and they are small, highly specialized and unpretty. The Sapphire is a boat! Thanks to the three drive units that go underseen between the axles, the cabin floor is long, open and airy. Daddy Long Legs, your car has arrived.
As you swing wide the big driver's door, you will see the finely detailed, triple-layered dash console floating with a pool of indirect light. Spanning two-thirds of the leather-wrapped console, the 34-inch widescreen display can merge and mingle driver-centric graphics and readouts, while the center-stack touch screen handles housekeeping matters such as climate, seat controls and drive mode selection. Please, Professor, don't touch that.
In a market full of look-alike, work-alike UX systems dating from who knows, the Lucid's graphical interface leaps out as being the easiest and most intuitive, with smart, clear graphics and traffic visualization. While most business is conducted through the car's central touch screens, The Lucid's ergonomics show an effort to maintain a humanity that arch rival Teslas have been purged of, by way of dark Vulcan rituals.
I rise again to nominate the Sapphire as a modern design masterpiece, inasmuch as this deeply satisfying and compelling form also registers the lowest aero drag (0.197 Cd) of any production car. As Mercedes-Benz learned with the EQS series, the search for efficiency can take some ugly turns.
You don't need to be Einstein to see that.
2025 Lucid Air Sapphire
Price, as tested: $250,500
Powertrain: all-electric, with three integrated drive units (front single, rear dual motor), each comprising motor/generator, silicon-carbide power inverter and single-speed transmission; 118-kWh battery pack; all-wheel drive
Length/wheelbase/width/height: 197/116.5/86.4/55.4
Curb weight: 5,336 pounds
Power/torque: 1,234 hp/1,430 lb-ft
0-60 mph: 1.89 seconds
Top speed: 205 mph
EPA estimated range: 427 miles
Fuel economy: 108/101/105 MPG-e, city/hwy/combined
Peak charging rate: 300 kW
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 26, 2024 17:00 ET (21:00 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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