I've just driven the super fast Lucid Air Sapphire but I'm left wanting an Audi S6 e-tron instead

Stuff.tv

6 days ago

It's not every day you get a choice of around sixty different motors to drive, many of them the best electric cars on the market. GTEST Alsfeld 2025, held not far from Frankfurt and currently in its fifth year, had just that to offer last week – and EVs were in just as much demand as the V8 super cars.
Queues for the three-motor, 1000+ bhp Lucid Air Sapphire and latest super quick Chevrolet Corvette regularly snaked around the event. Both are entertaining for obvious reasons, but there were plenty of alternatives that would be much easier to live with in a real-world, daily drive scenario. My pick of the lot was the new Audi S6 e-tron, which looked good, came loaded with lots of goodies and drove like a dream. In fact, I think this was one of the best Audi's I've ever driven.
It's hard to ignore the brute force provided by the Lucid Air Sapphire though. A stint behind the wheel of a Lucid Air GT the day before was my first experience of the brand; these machines look distinctive from the outside, but the interior is radically styled with a glass roof that seamlessly slopes into the windscreen. The sun visors are mounted directly to the glass.
The dashboard area is equally interesting, with a sort of floating touchscreen instrument panel and an upright centre console touchscreen with lots of other controls, including the various drive mode. You can use the screen to pick a mode, or stick with the traditional drive shifter on the steering column.
This choice takes on a new perspective in the Sapphire, which gets Smooth, Swift, Sapphire and Track modes to choose from, all of which pack in hidden delights.
The Lucid Air GT is fast, but the Sapphire is on another level. It is scarily fast, with zero to 60mph arriving in a mind-blowing 1.89 seconds. There's a whopping 1,234 horsepower and a monstrous 1,430lb ft of torque, which shades the Porsche Taycan Turbo GT. It needs to be handled with care. Having two electric motors at the rear and one at the front helps get that power down, but usd carelessly it'd probably result in needing a neck brace, such is the neck-snapping acceleration. The brakes, as I found out whenever they were tapped, provided seemingly unlimited stopping power too.
Despite all this mad power, the Lucid Air Sapphire proved very comfortable at sensible speeds and feels nicely poised on the road. That composure didn't fall apart when travelling over less than glass-like asphalt, either. The company has tweaked the suspension for this model, while the enormous wheels have lots of quality rubber. The sizeable full-size sedan would feel large on smaller European back roads, but get one on a motorway and it'll eat up long journeys.
Despite the fact it munches through battery power like there's no tomorrow with your foot to the floor, the 118kW battery can deliver up 427 miles of range.
It's here where I drop two clangers. First, the price: a Lucid Air Sapphire will set you back circa $250,000. Second, it's not yet available outside of the US. Which left me with a quandary as to what I'd buy from the bumper selection of vehicles at GTEST Alsfeld on a more sensible budget.
There were plenty of highlights: the Skoda Enyaq VRS, BYD Dolphin Surf and Mini Aceman to name but a few. The best of my bunch though, was the new Audi S6 e-tron.
Oh sure, it's still expensive (at around £100,000), but everything's expensive these days – and it's also a veritable bargain compared to the Lucid. Granted, it's not as fast, but zero to sixty still clocks in at 3.9 seconds and it'll do 149mph while delivering over 400 miles of range. Inside, there's mountains of tech all of which largely works to great effect.
Best of all though, I thought the Audi S6 e-tron drove like a dream and felt really capable without being scary. The Lucid didn't feel scary either, but I bet it would if pushed to the max.
As for the Corvette I mentioned at the start… it had to be retired from the event early due to some damage to the rear end. The worst part about that, aside from the rumoured $20,000 dollar repair cost? It was withdrawn from service right before my go…