- Lucid’s Air Sapphire completed zero-to-200-to-zero mph in just 25.7 seconds.
- The Corvette ZR1X finished 6.1 seconds behind despite tiny stopping distance.
- McLaren’s 750S trailed further back while 911 Turbo S couldn’t quite hit 200 mph.
If you like geeking out on performance stats you’ll love Car and Driver’s latest 0-150-0 mph (0-241-0 kmh) feature, a test it first ran almost 30 years ago. But cars – and not just supercars – have become so ridiculously fast since then that this year the magazine found it had enough runway, and enough horses, to try 200 mph (322 kmh) and back. And some serious scalps were removed in the process.
The venue had a 2.2-mile taxiway, and four cars theoretically had enough firepower to crack the double century. They were the 1,234 hp (1,251 PS / 920 kW) Lucid Air Sapphire, 1,250 hp (1,267 PS) Chevrolet Corvette ZR1X, 740 hp (750 PS) McLaren 750S, and 701 hp (711 PS) Porsche 911 Turbo S.
Related: No American Road Car Has Ever Reached 60 Faster Than This Lucid
The Porsche, it turned out didn’t quite make the grade. Despite an official 200 mph (322 kmh) maximum, C/D recorded 199.3 mph (321 kmh) before the limiter intervened. Close, but no celebratory cigar.
The other three got there, and the results were pretty epic. Lucid’s enormous electric sedan completed 0-200-0 mph in just 25.7 seconds. The Corvette needed another 6.1 seconds, recording 31.8 seconds, while the McLaren finished in 37.7 seconds. Yes, a luxury four-door EV just annihilated two purpose-built sports cars.
Low Drag Equals Low Times
The Lucid’s secret isn’t complicated. It has monumental power and relatively slippery bodywork, both becoming increasingly important as speeds climb and aerodynamic drag starts demanding absurd amounts of energy. Car and Driver found the Sapphire reached 200 mph (322 km/h) more than seven seconds before the ZR1X and over 13 seconds ahead of the McLaren.
Braking gave the sports cars an opportunity for revenge. Their lower mass meant they could shed 200 mph (322 kmh) more effectively than the hefty Lucid, which needed nearly a quarter-mile (402 m) to stop. Trouble is, they’d already lost so much ground accelerating that better braking couldn’t rescue them. For me, the most mind-blowing stat of the lot is that the Lucid completed the entire run in less than a mile (1.6 km). That’s bonkers.
Head over to Car and Driver for its complete 0-150-0 mph (0-241-0 kmh) test, where you’ll find figures for everything from the Dodge Charger Scat Pack to the BMW M2 CS and even the Hyundai Elantra N.
