NEWARK, Calif. – All four versions of the 2024 Lucid Air are before me, from the entry-level Pure to the ballistic-missile-like Sapphire. I’m to drive all of them in a single day on some of the Bay Area’s most beautiful mountain roads. No city stop-and-go or highway cruising involved. Nope, Lucid wants to show off the dynamics of its Air lineup on roads that seem best suited to Porsches,
Of course, it makes sense that the Air performs well on the roads engineers validated their work on – I’m starting out only a short 20-mile drive from the company’s Newark, Calif. headquarters. While visiting Lucid’s headquarters the previous night, CEO Peter Rawlinson endlessly.
The Sapphire is silent violence. It’s also what the Tesla Model S Plaid wishes it was. Both the Lucid and Tesla boast 0-60 times under 2 seconds, but there’s a $160,000 gulf between their starting prices. Only when you’ve driven them both do you understand why the price difference is so stark. Lucid’s Sapphire is a complete, high-performance luxury car from stem to stern, while the Plaid feels like a half-hearted muscle car.
To put things into perspective for the gasoline-driven gearheads among us, the Sapphire is to the Air lineup what the M5 Competition is to the 5 Series range. It’s the whole enchilada. Most of its suspension is different than that of other Air models, and it results in a car with a chassis that can handle its copious amounts of power. Which, by the way, is 1,234 horsepower. Sort of. Rawlinson said that’s a completely made-up number (because 1-2-3-4 sounded cool) and that the actual figure is a good bit higher. I don’t doubt that whatsoever after driving it.
Only when you’ve driven them both do you understand why the price difference is so stark. Lucid’s Sapphire is a complete, high-performance luxury car from stem to stern, while the Plaid feels like a half-hearted muscle car; a one-trick pony from yesteryear.
The Sapphire’s interior completes the performance package, too, as it’s fitted with tremendously comfortable and supportive sport buckets that keep you stuck in while exercising the car’s insanely high capabilities.