NEW Hagerty drag race: Demon 170 vs Sapphire!

[PaulS]

This guy thinks he can beat the Sapphire with his 170, which comes down to his reaction time.
As he's further explaining, he starts to tell us why ICE cars are inferior, especially the Charger because you need to have the most perfect conditions for it function

 

[RockSports]

This guy thinks he can beat the Sapphire with his 170, which comes down to his reaction time.
As he's further explaining, he starts to tell us why ICE cars are inferior, especially the Charger because you need to have the most perfect conditions for it function

Most of what he says is meaningless. Of course drivers matter, but someone with a better reaction time than him in the Lucid would negate his reaction time thing. Notice from the two Hagerty races the Lucid runs roughly the same time at both the prepped and the unprepped track while the demon is useless if the conditions aren't perfect. Lucid build the Sapphire to run well ALL THE TIME not every third Sunday of a full moon at a relative humidity of 26% and an ideal 48 degrees outside. Even if the demon wins in it's perfect conditions it isn't faster in my book.

Fast to me means how fast it can reasonably be expected to be today, tomorrow and next week. The Sapphire is clearly the faster car with those standards and if it wins 9 out of 10 times, remember they ran it 16 times and the demon lost every time on the prepped track, it's the faster car overall. If we are talking about pure records, a car broke the sound barrier, so neither of these two is the fastest, and top fuel dragsters are faster than either.

 

[terrycs]

Rigged?? I bet Hagerty would get even more views if they "rigged" the race for the 170 to win.

 

[RM-S8]

"I'll go to jail for this".
True

 

[Jester1868]

Notice they also didn't spin/cook the tires on the Sapphire either. I can only imagine how it would've done with even better hooks.
Curious...I know our cars' chassis has the space for the third motor. I wonder if they could be modded after the fact?

 

[Overcharged]

Notice they also didn't spin/cook the tires on the Sapphire either. I can only imagine how it would've done with even better hooks.
Curious...I know our cars' chassis has the space for the third motor. I wonder if they could be modded after the fact?

I would have to believe there is a lot more that just plugging in another eMotor to make something like that work. In this case you are swapping out the whole rear drive set up to go from single to dual motor. Then who knows if the wiring harness is right and of course the software. I don't believe the DE has the same sport suspension as the GT-P let alone what was done in the Sapphire. At that point you have to decide about a brake upgrade. Imagine what all this stuff will cost and then find someone to do a job no one has done before.

 

[hydbob]

I would have to believe there is a lot more that just plugging in another eMotor to make something like that work. In this case you are swapping out the whole rear drive set up to go from single to dual motor. Then who knows if the wiring harness is right and of course the software. I don't believe the DE has the same sport suspension as the GT-P let alone what was done in the Sapphire. At that point you have to decide about a brake upgrade. Imagine what all this stuff will cost and then find someone to do a job no one has done before.

I'm fairly certain the GTP is a detuned DEP

 

[Jester1868]

I'm fairly certain the GTP is a detuned DEP

Perhaps...with a slightly smaller battery

 

[borski]

I'm fairly certain the GTP is a detuned DEP

This is my understanding too.

 

[xponents]

I'm fairly certain the GTP is a detuned DEP

This is my understanding too.

Wait, doesn't it have the "regular" rear motor without the special metallurgy that's in the DE-P?

Perhaps...with a slightly smaller battery

Actually, when produced, the batteries were the same 118 kwh Samsung battery. Rumors are that this battery is being used in the 2024 (and perhaps 2025) GT's, although its never been confirmed.

 

[Overcharged]

My window sticker for the GT-P says 1111HP
I have the sense from speaking with folks at Goose Island that the GT-P is really a DEP with an upgraded suspension and Lucid as many tech companies do just lowered the specs on paper.

 

[hmp10]

I know our cars' chassis has the space for the third motor. I wonder if they could be modded after the fact?

Actually, the Air chassis was built to accept four motors, according to Zak Edson, VP of Sales & Service. But that configuration was expected only to be used for a different type of vehicle built on that same platform (such as a truck?).

The Sapphire doesn't just have two rear motors sitting side by side. They are internally modified to share the same differential (which sits inside the rotor of a Lucid motor), thus creating what is essentially a single drive unit. Also, the Sapphire has unique software to manage electronic torque vectoring. There might even be higher-capacity fusing to allow more peak current to be delivered by the battery pack (a trick Tesla used when upgrading the Model S from Insane to Ludicrous mode).

In short, I doubt it would even be possible to do an aftermarket modification of a dual-motor Air to a tri-motor Air. Even if physically possible, I'm pretty certain that you wouldn't get anything like the factory result.

 

[Overcharged]

Actually, the Air chassis was built to accept four motors, according to Zak Edson, VP of Sales & Service. But that configuration was expected only to be used for a different type of vehicle built on that same platform (such as a truck?).

The Sapphire doesn't just have two rear motors sitting side by side. They are internally modified to share the same differential (which sits inside the rotor of a Lucid motor), thus creating what is essentially a single drive unit. Also, the Sapphire has unique software to manage electronic torque vectoring. There might even be higher-capacity fusing to allow more peak current to be delivered by the battery pack (a trick Tesla used when upgrading the Model S from Insane to Ludicrous mode).

In short, I doubt it would even be possible to do an aftermarket modification of a dual-motor Air to a tri-motor Air. Even if physically possible, I'm pretty certain that you wouldn't get anything like the factory result.

I visited the Beverly Hills facility in December 2023.
They have a full chassis on the floor.
When I was discussing my happy ownership experience with the Advisor on site, he noted the way the chassis was designed, they are limited to a single front eMotor.

 

[hmp10]

I visited the Beverly Hills facility in December 2023.
They have a full chassis on the floor.
When I was discussing my happy ownership experience with the Advisor on site, he noted the way the chassis was designed, they are limited to a single front eMotor.

I have frequented the two Florida Design Centers in West Palm Beach and Miami since their openings. I have found the advisors to vary from very knowledgeable about the cars to almost clueless. Someone in the latter group will sometimes say "I don't know" when you ask a technical question but, unfortunately, sometimes you get blather on a par with the most skip-stepping used car salesman.

Zak Edson has been a senior executive at Lucid since the design stage of the Air. When I met him at the Miami Design Center opening, we were standing next to the display chassis when he told me about the four-motor capability of the chassis at the same time he told me about the exotic metallurgy in the Dream Edition rear motor that added 15 hp and a larger bump in torque (that he would not disclose). Zak was clear that Lucid had no plans to use a second front motor in an Air, but he was equally clear that the chassis would take it if desired for a different vehicle type. I would take his word over that of a floor salesman.

 

[borski]

My window sticker for the GT-P says 1111HP
I have the sense from speaking with folks at Goose Island that the GT-P is really a DEP with an upgraded suspension and Lucid as many tech companies do just lowered the specs on paper.

Window stickers are not super reliable - there were a few months, for example, when Lucid literally shipped the wrong stickers (yes, it was a bit of a fiasco).

My understanding based on speaking with folks on the exec team is the GT-P was basically a detuned DE-P (and, as @xponents pointed out, the GT-P doesn’t have the super fancy rear motor metallurgy).

But I do not have definitive proof.

 

[hmp10]

Window stickers are not super reliable - there were a few months, for example, when Lucid literally shipped the wrong stickers (yes, it was a bit of a fiasco).

My understanding based on speaking with folks on the exec team is the GT-P was basically a detuned DE-P (and, as @xponents pointed out, the GT-P doesn’t have the super fancy rear motor metallurgy).

But I do not have definitive proof.

When I asked Zak Edson why the Dream was going to be a limited edition he said that it was really intended by Rawlinson to be an engineering exercise to see just how much performance they could wring out of the technology without having to worry about cost in an ongoing production model.

One of the purposes of the Dream was to launch Lucid into the market with the most power, the most range, and the most performance of any dual-motor EV on the market. As electric motors become more efficient the lower in their power output range they are operating, one of the ways you get the efficiency to get the range is to up the power of the motor for a given volume in an automotive application. It was probably for that purpose that this engineering exercise used a motor with exotic metallurgy that was too expensive to carry over into mass production.

 

[borski]

When I asked Zak Edson why the Dream was going to be a limited edition he said that it was really intended by Rawlinson to be an engineering exercise to see just how much performance they could wring out of the technology without having to worry about cost in an ongoing production model.

One of the purposes of the Dream was to launch Lucid into the market with the most power, the most range, and the most performance of any dual-motor EV on the market. As electric motors become more efficient the lower in their power output range they are operating, one of the ways you get the efficiency to get the range is to up the power of the motor for a given volume in an automotive application. It was probably for that purpose that this engineering exercise used a motor with exotic metallurgy that was too expensive to carry over into mass production.

That is my understanding as well. It was the first “proof of concept” that wouldn’t scale but would prove it’s worth it and that you can achieve amazing stats. And then the Sapphire was the magnum opus, as it came to sedans.

 

[terrycs]

Best way to verify power output is through VIN lookup:

Welcome to VIN Decoding :: provided by vPIC

vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov

Locate Engine Power in kW and multiply by 1.34102 to get hp. For my GT-P, it is 1050 hp as expected.

 

[Jester1868]

Best way to verify power output is through VIN lookup:

Welcome to VIN Decoding :: provided by vPIC

vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov

Locate Engine Power in kW and multiply by 1.34102 to get hp. For my GT-P, it is 1050 hp as expected.


View attachment 21959

I checked out my VIN and it states: Battery Energy (kWh) From 112. But I have a DE. Shouldn't it be 118?

 

[borski]

Best way to verify power output is through VIN lookup:

Welcome to VIN Decoding :: provided by vPIC

vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov

Locate Engine Power in kW and multiply by 1.34102 to get hp. For my GT-P, it is 1050 hp as expected.


View attachment 21959

Mine gives me 1,111.70558 HP. It also says 112 kWh battery, but that’s likely just an error.