Soon, Tesla's Model S Plaid Might Receive an Equally Bonkers Luxury EV Answer

Sure, one can argue that Volkswagen AG’s beloved sports car maker Porsche has managed to live up to its reputation even in the all-new field of battery-electric sports cars. Granted, the Taycan Turbo S looks great and performs like a hoot, but we haven’t seen owners rush over to the drag strip for a quarter-mile race with the new Model S Plaid.

Instead, even when sandbagging, the Model S Plaid has beaten some of the best ICE cars around. Hey, although it’s not in the same league, Tesla even dared to go head-to-head with the even crazier Rimac Nevera to deliver that 3,000-horsepower EV race everyone has been dreaming about.

Speaking of dreams, there’s a new kid on the block that might finally provide a matching answer. Well, it’s not really a new kid since Lucid Motors has been telling us for years it will try to outmatch Tesla in terms of premium comfort creatures, technology, range, and - above all - performance. Now it seems that finally, all (investor) planets have aligned for the EV battle of this new decade.

Earlier this month, after merging with Churchill Capital Corp IV, Lucid Motors made its debut on Nasdaq with a new ticker symbol (LCID) and the Lucid Group, Inc. name. Better yet, aside from becoming a publicly traded company, Lucid also enriched its accounts with no less than $4.4 billion. That means a lot of development peace for the impending Air Dream Edition first deliveries. As well as the opportunity to focus on its future, which includes the expansion of the company’s greenfield factory in Arizona and an acceleration of the Project Gravity SUV development.

But let’s get back to the Lucid Air Dream Edition because that’s the model that will potentially provide an answer to the Tesla Model S Plaid. Bear in mind, things could still go south very fast since the company only has a little over 11k paid reservations for Air Dream. Which isn’t exactly astonishing, considering the “fully-equipped price” of $169,000. Meanwhile, the Model S Plaid seems like a bargain at no less than $129,990.

Still, it feels like people took the Plaid out racing the minute its delivery was complete, so we can imagine that some will do the same with the Air Dream Edition. Especially after hearing out that Lucid Motors has decided to separate the initial batches of Airs into sedans that either go faster or farther. So, the Lucid Air Dream Edition now features two versions: Performance and Range.

The goals are crystal clear, as the Air Dream P will have a powertrain “optimized for speed and acceleration, with 1,111 horsepower,” whereas the Air Dream R settles for 933 horsepower to focus on maximizing range. According to the company, new EPA range estimates are in the process of certification and will be revealed for each version. On the other hand, MotorTrend got a sneak peek at the Dream Edition Range, and a pair of cars went out for a real-world test, delivering hypothetical mileage figures of 475 and 517 miles (764 km or 832 km).

This was expected. More importantly, for us, it would be a quarter-mile evaluation of the new Air Dream Performance. After all, there’s just a 0.2s difference between the R and P to 60 mph / 96 kph (2.7s to 2.5s). Right now, we already know the Lucid alternative will be more expensive, potentially much better for road trips (Plaid has 396 miles / 637 km EPA estimate), more luxurious, perhaps better made, and just as dual-motor/AWD capable from the technical standpoint.

But is it going to be able to provide a motorsport-related answer as well, potentially giving us a new EV drag strip king?