Lucid shows off its Air doing a 9.245-second quarter-mile

It should be no surprise by now that electric cars are pretty damned good at drag racing. We've seen stock Teslas embarrassing some very serious pieces of kit on YouTube for years now, but it would seem that there is a new king of the strip -- even if it is just a development mule.

I'm talking, of course, about the Lucid Air, and we already knew that there was a bonkers-fast three-motor version being tested recently, but the company sent out a tweet on Friday showing what appears to be a more sane-looking version car making a quarter-mile pass in just 9.245 seconds at 157.26 mph. For some context, the Dodge Demon -- a machine made almost exclusively to rule the drag strip -- does the quarter in 9.65 seconds.

Now, as impressive as a 9.245-second quarter mile is -- and it is, seriously -- there are a bunch of things we don't know about the run. The most significant question mark is, what kind of tires this particular Air was on? Was it a production car with an interior, or a stripped-out test mule. What happened to the wild body kit and big fenders? Did they yank the wings, etc. off the model we saw lapping Laguna Seca?

We reached out to Lucid for clarification and now, thanks to one of its representatives, we know a bit more about what's going on.

"This is a pure development mule for the tri-motor configuration that has been referenced in the past by Peter [Rawlinson, Lucid CEO]. In fact, it's the first one we've built with this configuration, and it didn't exist three months ago. Like some other of our beta prototypes that we've built with the dual-motor configuration, it does not have a full interior. Lastly, the car made the quarter-mile run with street-legal Pirelli Trofeos."

So, there you have it. Not drag slicks like a Demon, but not a complete car with an interior either. Not that it matters, because this prototype is fast enough to give you a nosebleed and they're not even finished with it.

2021 Lucid Air debuts with 1,080 horsepower Dream Edition

+18 More

See all photos

Watch this: 2021 Lucid Air vs. Tesla Model S: EVs go head-to-head

03:48