On the whole, big and powerful electric vehicles are stupidly quick, but some models are still faster than others. For a while, the Tesla Model S Plaid held that crown with its 1.99-second 0-60 mph time, but it has since been dethroned in the super-sedan segment by the Lucid Air Sapphire. The Tesla rival can hit 0-60 a tenth of a second faster. As it turns out, that gap widens the further you go down the road.
The folks over at the DragTimes YouTube channel decided to pit these two beasts against each other at the drag strip, and I’ll just cut to the chase. The Sapphire absolutely dog walked to the Model S Plaid, beating it down the strip by nearly a third of a second. The Lucid finished up the quarter mile in 8.96 seconds while going 153 mph. Meanwhile, the Tesla turned in a slightly-less-preposterous 149 mph trap speed and 9.28 second quarter mile time.
Listen, the Model S Plaid may have 1,020 horsepower and 1,050 lb-ft of torque, but that’s no match for the 1,234 horsepower and 1,430 lb-ft of torque (which may or may not be an understatement) of the Air Sapphire. I’ve driven and hit outrageous speeds in the Sapphire, so these sorts of power numbers and quarter-mile times are totally within reason if you ask me.
If we are being totally fair, these two cars exist in very different price brackets. The Air Sapphire starts and finishes at $250,500 and the Model S Plaid can be had starting at $89,630 ($107,630 if you tick every box), but still. This video isn’t about price points, it’s about speed, and if you want to match the speed of the Air Sapphire, you’re going to have to step up to the Rimac Nevera.