It’s been a little while since we last heard from Lucid Motors about its luxury, performance, autonomous-when-you-want-it-to-be Air EV. There were acquisition rumors regarding Ford, then a move to a new headquarters and, most recently, investment talks with the same Saudi fund that was in the mix when Elon Musk kicked off Maybe-Take-Tesla-Private Month. Before all that, though, Lucid was taking the Air out for testing. Really fast testing. Well over 200 mph testing.
Now, the startup has resurfaced, again getting back to the thing we all really want to talk about: driving the Lucid Air. In its latest missive, Lucid describes tackling Laguna Seca with its powerful EV.
The Air that Lucid brought to the famed circuit was essentially a “showroom intent” prototype with the interior swapped out “for a 6-point roll cage and fire-suppression system [with] high-temperature brake pads and brake fluid.” Game on.
So equipped, the Lucid Air managed a lap time of 1:41.67 with a chassis and vehicle dynamics engineer at the wheel. That’s considerably faster than the recent bone-stock production EV lap record recently set by the Jaguar I-Pace (1:48.18), or that of the Tesla Model S P100D’s (with upgraded brakes) searing hot lap (1:47.62). If you want to see Lucid’s raw point-of-view video, you’ll have to click through to Lucid’s post.
After that, Lucid swapped the production spec 21-inch Pirelli P Zero PZ4 summer tires for a set of Pirelli P Zero Trofeo R road-legal track tires, and flogged the EV some more. The result was a lap time of 1:39.30. Again, head to the blog post from Lucid to watch the cockpit video.
If you audibly gulped while watching the Air take that last corner, you’re in good company.
As Lucid notes, and as Chief Technical Officer Peter Rawlinson and Design VP Derek Jenkins told us when we caught up with them last year, this will be a car that isn’t just luxurious to ride in, but will be exceptionally exciting to drive. Judging from the handful of videos we’ve seen thus far, we’re in no place to argue otherwise. As much as we’re looking forward to spending time in those business-class rear seat, we’re far more anxious to get behind the wheel of this monster EV. For now, we’ll settle for these white-knuckle videos.
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