Car and Driver review

CraZ8

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2018 velar 2002 bmw z8
I still get the print magazine and in this months issue there was was a 6 page spread on the Lucid Air Dream Edition. It was amazingly balanced considering of the three big car publications ( road and track, motortrend, and car and driver) C and D usually casts the most jaundiced eye regarding EVs if they acknowledge them at all. They did pick a few nits but for the most part they were very positive. Here are some screen shots
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Interesting. They consider understeer on the skid pad "excessive" - I barely got any of note when pushing a DE pretty hard in the turns. The DB levels at 70mph cruise are also higher than expected. I'll have to test that out...
 
Interesting. They consider understeer on the skid pad "excessive" - I barely got any of note when pushing a DE pretty hard in the turns. The DB levels at 70mph cruise are also higher than expected. I'll have to test that out...

Agreed on the understeer. That surprised me, since I don’t feel it on my DE.

I don’t hear the car much at 70, but there’s some wind noise at 85-90 😈
 
Interesting. They consider understeer on the skid pad "excessive" - I barely got any of note when pushing a DE pretty hard in the turns. The DB levels at 70mph cruise are also higher than expected. I'll have to test that out...
Don't most EVs understeer due to the weight?
 
Don't most EVs understeer due to the weight?
The Taycan and Air both were surprisingly neutral when pushing in my experience, except for a brief moment of it on entry into the turn (which is a good thing). The chassis has the wheels pushed as far out to the bumpers as possible with most of the weight between the wheels and low down, especially in the Air. This theoretically keeps the center of gravity extremely low and prevents weight hanging out beyond the axles from messing up the balance. Under/oversteer manifests most readily when you have weight cantilevered out beyond the points of contact in the road.

Audi especially had issues with understeer due to the nature of their AWD systems. The engine is practically jutting forward of the front wheels, creating a large mass well above the pavement which is hard to control. Porsche has the same issue with the 911 and the rear-engine, though decades of optimization has almost completely neutralized this. Still, you can only defy physics so much and both of them are susceptible to that weight controlling the balance in a turn.

Thinking about it now, I bet the skidpad just isn't going to be a good place to gauge that balance. The driver is trying to maximize G and isn't necessarily looking to transition through into the oversteer you'd get at a turn exit. As a result the car is staying right at the edge of traction, and the weight of the DE combined with the road surface just might keep it from going neutral or oversteering at that point. This is a controlled test though, so in normal aggressively-fun driving it shouldn't be an issue.
 
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