Lucid Air vs. Porsche Taycan: Two Lightning-Quick EVs Hit the Drag Strip
Most performance EV races are pretty predictable but these two cars have a couple of surprises.
Electric car drag races often have little nuance. Big power make car go fast. That's really about the gist of every EV drag race. Because electric motors make almost all of their power and torque instantly, without any powerband or gearing to deal with, the winner of the drag race is usually just the one with the most power. However, this one from Carwow—featuring the Lucid Air and Porsche Taycan Turbo S—is a bit different. Not only does it show how differently EVs can perform, it shows how different their characters can be.
A lack of character differences is another complaint about performance EVs. All electric motors, and their power deliveries, pretty much feel the same. But Porsche proved that they don't have to, with the Taycan.
The Porsche Taycan Turbo is unique among electric performance cars, thanks to its carbon ceramic brakes with ten-piston calipers and two-speed gearbox at the rear axle. Those two things make this drag race far more interesting than it might have seemed at the beginning.
On paper, the Lucid Air Dream Edition should crush the Taycan. Its dual motors make 1,111 horsepower and 1,025 pound-feet of torque, which is far more than the Taycan Turbo S's 750 horsepower and 774 pound-feet. The Lucid is heavier but only by about 40 pounds. Which gives it a massive power-to-weight advantage, so you'd imagine it would obliterate the Porsche off the line.
Remember the Porsche's two-speed gearbox, though? Porsche's decision to fit a two-speed gearbox to the rear axle was clever because it gives the Taycan a low gear for launching and high gear for top speed. The former helped the Taycan absolutely rocket off the line in this drag race, so it quickly jumped ahead of the much more powerful Lucid. The Lucid eventually caught up and beat the Porsche through the quarter-mile but to about 60 mph, the Taycan had it. In the real world, Taycan Turbo S owners are going to beat Lucid owners in stop-light drag races.
The Porsche might be slower overall, at slower while already at speed, but it also has much better brakes and a sportier attitude, so it does actually distinguish itself from the Lucids and Teslas of the world, proving that EVs might actually be capable of creating an interesting automotive future.
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