Author: Chang Yan

For a long time, Lucid has been adhering to two methods in car production:

1. Cross the river by feeling the stones, following in the footsteps of Tesla.

2. Claiming to be a big brother with Tesla.

This approach of following in Tesla’s footsteps has left Tesla with nowhere to go, and has enabled Lucid to suppress Tesla’s vigor in many areas considered to be the core factors for electric vehicles, ever since their debut in the market.

For example, the Lucid Air Dream Edition, as the first car in the family, created an EPA electric vehicle range record of 832km (520 miles) upon its release, and stabbed Tesla in the back in a key area that Tesla users love to talk about.

This even led Musk to explain on Twitter: Long electric vehicle range doesn’t seem to be that important.

Subsequently, the Model S Plaid managed to score a point in terms of performance. Although the Lucid Air Dream Edition was nearly 100 horsepower more powerful, it always lagged behind in the popular 400-meter sprint enjoyed by the American people.

Especially considering that the Dream Edition went off the market after just 520 sales, it gave Tesla fans the justification to claim “If you can’t beat them, run.”

But remember, oftentimes when you can’t beat them, you just call them big brother.

After a week-long tease, Lucid suddenly reached the pinnacle of global electric vehicles in terms of performance.

All of the previous clues pointed to this performance dimension, but we didn’t expect the performance results to be this high, even though we guessed they would use three motors.

Lucid summed it up in two seemingly illegal advertising phrases, but ones that are hard to dispute:

• The world’s first fully electric luxury super sports sedan.

• Not only the most powerful electric sedan ever, but also the most powerful sedan in the world.

This, is the Lucid Air Sapphire.

If you, like me, have been playing with ATi graphics cards for 20 years, you will surely remember the flagship brand of A card head Sapphire, and more importantly, for Lucid, Sapphire is not just a limited edition car model, but a high-performance sub-brand, like AMG for Mercedes and M for BMW, it is a unique presence that will also develop into a series.

Therefore, Air Sapphire is the first sapphire, but it will not be the last, as Lucid had the idea of Sapphire as early as the development of Air, because Lucid realized that it already has the engineering, design, and technical capabilities needed to manufacture a super-performance vehicle.

And the sapphire color will also become a series of limited colors. The car paint color you see now comes from the benitoite gemstone in California, which is mined not far from the Lucid headquarters, and has become the exclusive mark of this series. Lucid hopes it will become the representative color of American high-performance cars, like British racing green.

As early as the release of the Lucid Air interior, people noticed the bear logo on it. And this time, the bear representing California and Lucid appeared on the front fenders, wheels, seat headrests, and even the motor. AMG has an apple tree, and Sapphire has the Lucid bear.

As a performance car, let’s focus on performance.

This car has the following terrifying parameters: less than 2 seconds from 0-96km/h, less than 4 seconds from 0-160km/h, less than 9 seconds to complete the 400-meter straight sprint, and a top speed of over 320km/h.

You may think that this is similar to the various data of the existing Model S Plaid, but note that, for example, the Plaid’s current data on the 400-meter sprint was achieved under the premise that a user had done extreme lightening modifications to the vehicle, while Sapphire is an off-the-shelf production car with all the luxury configurations installed.

And to avoid the pitfalls of the Model S Plaid where only the carbon-ceramic brake package allowed access to the top speed, but which was always out of stock, Lucid equips all kinds of custom top-of-the-line hardware as standard.

The Lucid Air Sapphire has stiffer front and rear springs, unique damper settings, stiffer bushings, as well as unique calibration for the ABS, traction, stability control and electric power steering (EPS).

Moreover, carbon-ceramic brake discs provide exceptional braking power and contribute to increased braking durability during high-performance driving. The vehicle also features wider, more aggressive wheels and tires. The front of the vehicle has been widened by 21 mm and the rear by 24 mm to accommodate the high-performance staggered Aero Sapphire wheels and specially developed Michelin PS4S tires with front size 265/35R20 and rear size 295/30R21. These tires use unique compounds developed specifically for Lucid vehicles and are marked with the LM1 identifier. These distinctive wheels also feature detachable carbon-fiber aerospace grade disc wheel covers.

Of course, the most important feature is the Sapphire’s three-motor setup, which uses a layout of one motor in the front and two in the rear, with each rear motor driving a single rear wheel. These motors use Lucid’s micro-jet-cooled stator and wavy-windings technologies, while dual rear-drive units introduce new heat exchange technology with higher cooling fluid flow rates, and the battery system has also been upgraded for greater power and more precise thermal logic.

David Lickfold, Director of Chassis and Vehicle Dynamics, said, “Our goal for our first Sapphire model is to complement our outstanding powertrain system with more responsive, agile driving dynamics and enhanced vehicle control.”

The torque vectoring expands the capabilities of automobiles far beyond what can be achieved by passive all-wheel drive systems. The dual rear-drive unit can effectively rotate the rear of the vehicle and provide opposite-torque to the rear wheels, improving turning or straight-line stability – similar to brake-based setups and rear-wheel steering systems, but faster, quieter, and more seamless. During sharp turns, the system can provide power to the outside while applying regenerative braking to the inside wheels, greatly enhancing the vehicle’s turning rotation and has faster response time than the rear-wheel steering system.

The small size and efficiency of the motor allows the new Lucid Air Sapphire to retain the signature uncompromising luxury, intelligent use of space and top-class range of Lucid Air.

“Lucid has not compromised the interior even with its performance, and even strengthens it,” says Derek Jenkins, VP of Brand & Design at Lucid. The new Sapphire Mojave interior theme includes a new, highly supportive 18-way electric sport seat designed by Lucid, with Lucid Black leather padding, contrast-stitched with black Alcantara and sapphire blue thread. Despite being designed for energetic driving, the seat still provides indulgent comfort and heating, cooling, and massage functions.

They even optimized the Glass Cockpit and Pilot Panel interface, providing practical performance-oriented menus and driving modes, with the high-performance mode named Sapphire Mode.

“Blue represents high-performance luxury for Lucid,” said Derek Jenkins, VP of Brand & Design at Lucid. “What we see in Lucid Air Sapphire today is just the beginning of the Sapphire brand.”

Lucid CEO/CTO Peter Rawlinson said, “Sapphire represents the pinnacle of electrical performance and has finally reached the level of performance I have been seeking for a long time. After arduous development work, I can confirm that the Lucid Air Sapphire has achieved satisfactory performance, which I believe the most discerning drivers will agree with.“

The Lucid Air Sapphire will be offered as a limited-production model and is scheduled to be delivered in the United States and Canada next year at a price of $249,000 and CAD 325,000.

Without exaggeration, this car has become the hottest topic in the Tesla community today.

While many people consciously rushed to Lucid’s official account to question who would spend $250,000 on an electric car.

But there are also many honest people who go to @Musk to ask if there are any plans for the Model S Plaid Plus.

With Plaid being a commonplace among all electric vehicle KOLs in the United States, I unilaterally declare this to be the crown jewel in the identity of the current electric vehicle KOL.

This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.