EV vs TT! 1234hp Lucid Air Sapphire Drag Races 1000hp Audi TT RS

All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of This vs. That. We've got a super fast Audi TT RS and we've got none other than Mr. Doug DeMuro. This is This vs. That. As a guest host and driver. Yup, I'm driving the Lucid Air Sapphire, which is very, very, very fast. Is Doug DeMuro gonna tree this guy? Find out after these words. Yes. I'm Doug DeMuro and this is the Lucid Air Sapphire. And today I have David with me, the Director of Chassis and Vehicle Dynamics from Lucid. He has brought us this car. Tell us about it. Thank you. For those who haven't heard of us, Lucid is an EV company headquartered in California. This is the Lucid Air Sapphire, which is our three-motor, top-of-the-range performance model. I think you've driven a Lucid Air previously. A few folks here have. Oh, oh my God. This is our new latest and greatest three-motor version. 1234 horsepower. Yup. And four-wheel drive. And it's incredibly fast. I drove one of these for a review. It was unbelievably fast. What kind of tires do you need to have on a vehicle in order to put power like that down? Very good ones. So these are Michelin Pilot Sport 4S. It's a custom development for Lucid, collaboration between. For this car? Yeah, specifically for this car. Thick, wide tires. They square, same front rim? No, 265 front, 295 in the rear. The really trick thing about these is for most of the width of the tread, it's a Pilot Sport 4S. And on the shoulder, it's a Cup 2 compound. So the idea is you're driving in straight line on the freeway, just trying to get to or from work. You're running on the low rolling resistance rubber. When you lean on it, you engage that shoulder. You engage the sticky Cup 2 rubber. Okay, now the really crazy thing about this car is in addition to being running a quarter mile on the 8s, it's also like a very nice car. It's very luxurious and calming when you drive it. How is it possible to even create a car that does both of those things at once? Lots of very, very careful engineering. So the whole thing, one of the whole things about Lucid, the way we design and engineer, is chasing every last millimeter and every last gram. So we shrink the drive units. We shrink the battery. And that kind of miniaturization adds up throughout the vehicle. So we've got a vehicle that is similar wheelbase to a Tesla Model S, Mercedes E-Class, similar exterior proportions. We have more space inside than a Mercedes S-Class. Okay, we're inside the Lucid Air Sapphire. Tell me what makes this car so great inside. First of all, great ergonomics. We've got a new Alcantara-trimmed steering wheel. We've got seats that are much more supportive, much more bolstered. In terms of the drive modes, like we talked about, there's a bunch of different drive modes that I was really impressed with when I drove this car a couple months ago, just how they changed the character of the car. So can you walk me through a little bit exactly what they are? Yeah, definitely. So if we start off in smooth mode, as the name suggests, it's very comfortable, very luxurious. So everything's kind of in soft. Dampers are in soft, steering is quite light. You've got about 750 horsepower, so not much to play with. Not fast enough! One of the really cool things this car can do is run in front-wheel drive mode. When you're on a freeway, cruising at 65, whatever, the driver will never know, because if they do a steering input or a throttle input, we can switch to all-wheel drive quicker than a human can perceive. Interesting. So you never know it's a front-wheel drive car. And the front-wheel drive is to save fuel, or not fuel, but increase range. Yep, it's our most efficient mode. And then as we step up into swift and sapphire modes, these three are our on-road modes, so they get more aggressive as you move to the right. So your steering will weight up, you get a bit more feedback. Then we have track mode, which is new for air sapphire, and that gives you all the power, all the torque, all the chassis optimization for track, and then you get three sub-modes as well. Drag strip, hot lap, and endurance. And today we will use drag strip or drag racing mode, and we're gonna kill it. Okay, time to check out the other car. All right, and now for that, what could quite possibly be one of the nastiest sleepers and probably one of the cars that would disrespect you the most on the street. I'm gonna let you introduce yourself and tell us what you brought here. Yeah, what's up, guys? I'm Thomas Emmanuel, and I brought a 2018 Audi TTRS today. Here's the thing. If you guys know anything about some of these Audi five-cylinder cars with turbos, perhaps watch something from our boy, Hank Iras. Ah! Fast, and when this thing shows up with bead locks on all fours and a giant intercooler, I feel like it's gonna be pretty nasty. You know, obviously, first up, you see a gigantic intake on this, but walk us through what's been done to the motor, and then we can get into the trans and, you know, diffs and all that stuff. Sure, yeah, so I mean, on the motor-wise, this is really just a basic bottom-end build. You know, rods, pistons, head studs, cylinder heads all stock, just running a pretty big turbo in there. We got a Precision 6870. Can you tell us how much power that it makes? Yeah, we just had a dyno this morning. We have a Mustang dyno, which they call it the Heartbreaker. Hey, come on, got it! It's a 820 wheel, which is about 1,000 crank. And then any modifications to the transmission or the driveline? Transmission's all stock, driveline's stock. We do have upgraded clutches, upgraded flywheel, but yeah, I mean, it's a pretty simple build, to be honest, so. 1,000 horsepower with bolt-ons is ridiculous. Very simple bolt-on build that yet I see studs and I see beadlocks and slicks on all four corners. So what's the wheel and tire setup? Yeah, so at this point, we're running 15-inch bellock wheels. We got a custom Wilwood brake kit too, because obviously 15s wouldn't fit on a nice big RS brake setup. So we got a little drag brake setup on there and then we're running the Mickey Thompson radials on there as well. How much weight do you save from the brakes alone? I mean, on the fronts, we save about 50 pounds. On the rears, it's about 30, 40 pounds. It's a pretty nice, nice chunk. And obviously running 15 wheels saves a lot too. Interior looks pretty stock, minus a seat or, is there any, is there rear seats in these? There are rear seats. The rear bench is out right now. So there's the backrest that's removed and the lower bench that's taken out there. And as you see, obviously the passenger seat missing. Yes, have you weighed this car in this setup? To be honest, I have not, no. Okay, and what do these things weigh out of the factory, do you know? They're about 35, 50, you know, loaded with fuel and everything. Should be low threes, I'd say with this setup now. I take it, you've taken it to the track. Yeah. Do you want to disclose your quarter mile times? We've done a low nines, you know, like 90, 91. You know, we have a decent reference point there on a prep track, obviously. Of course. So we'll see how it, you know, how it fares today. Low nine second grocery getter on prep. That's a- Hairdresser car. Didn't want to say it, but yeah, this might be the world's fastest hairdresser car. The Lucid Air is going to beat this car and it would beat any other car here, including all the airplanes. I'm rooting for Dougie here, okay? Thank you. I feel like he's going to come out hot because I've actually seen how fast he's on it. They're pretty good. The Audi 2C looks like he needs to chill. It has really big wheels and tires on it. You're an animal. Yeah, I'm going with the Audi. I'm going with the Lucid on this one. I mean, they did their homework. They did the science. It looks like a daily driver, but it's really built to put down the power. If I pick one more car that's gas powered and it loses, does that make me a loser? Yes! You know why I'm picking the Audi, because it's green. Yo, I saw that Lucid go earlier and I feel like that's going to take it, even though that Audi all-wheel drive. No, sorry, Lucid. Everybody, this is DJ Lucid in the house. Oh, shit. Exactly. Yes! We about to see a race. Round one. All right. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. What do you think? Like Lucid by a car? Yeah, I'll hold anything more than a car. What was it? Lucid by a car and a half. Oh, can maybe we see the footage? We got homies saying we need to balance up. Every EV car we get, we put more people in, it just makes more grip. Can I sit in the trunk? You want to be in the trunk? Hold on, it's one of them? Hmm, y'all freaky. Hands on your knees. Hey. Hands on your knees. Doug, the car's too damn fast. We're all getting in with you. We're going to give him a car and the hit, okay? All right, let's do it. We'll still win. Confidence on this man. I want to know how to open this door. Still locked. Round two. Where's Diego? Oh my God! Shit! Thousand miles. I can't fall down a steep. Falling down in a steep right there. Why am I just drooping the jizz out of my mouth? Ew! Ooh, ooh. You made me salivate. Oh, what's it Gary? This is insane. You want to try? Yeah. You want to get in here, Georgia? Okay, let's go. Gary, tell the camera that we're running heads up, ballast boys. Heads up, ballast boys, but we're going to set myself for Georgia so she can feel the experience. We're going to cut 160, 70 pounds out of you. Yeah, there goes a body. Significantly lighter. Round three. That's a fast ball. Oh, shit! It's still going! He jumped it! Yo! No! This is off the lot. That thing is built. Like built, built. How do you feel, Doug? I mean, this car is unbelievably fast. It's just crazy. And also that we're sitting in here and there's like leather and Alcantara and quad zone climate control. Well, he's got to drive a fully built drag car. It's insane. It's totally insane. Hey, do we want to do a bonus because he jumped? Yes. I have to go right now. We've kept him hours over his time limit. This man's got things to do. So we're going to switch drivers, throw some ballast. We're running him fast. The driver? No. No, you don't want me to do this. So we're going to go heads up again. Clearly, TT is getting faster. So we got ballast in there. See what it do. You good? You guys ready? There you go. Go, gas baby. Damn. All right. Well, look, that's what it took. That's amazing for a production car to be that fast off the floor. It's also amazing that a basic, you could take a basically stock car, put some bolt-ons on it, a little bit bigger turbo, take a seat out, put some flicks on it. Those little scars are very impressive. Yeah. Insanely impressive. Good job, Audi. Good job, Lucid. Oh yeah. Still a heavy foot? Yeah, yeah. Damn. Oh, shit.