Lucid Motors has made performance a selling point of its upcoming EV, and is directly challenging Tesla’s Model S. It’s already promised the Lucid Air will be capable of sub-10-second quarter mile times, and even showed a prototype’s 9.9-second run down the drag strip.
Then Elon Musk opened up pre-orders for the triple-motor ‘Plaid’ Model S sedan, and said it would do a quarter mile in less than 9.9 seconds when it goes on sale next year. Just to keep pushing the bar, CNET Roadshow points out a tweet from Lucid showing an Air run that took just 9.245 seconds, well under the record for a production car. It’s an impressive time to be sure, but as they note, while the car shown is wearing street-legal Pirelli Trofeo tires, it is a triple-motor development mule without a full interior. We’ll have to wait and see what more realistic versions of the sedan are more capable of, but according to Motor Trend, Lucid has already prepared a version that might go faster.