America’s Quickest Gasoline Automobile Does not Stand A Likelihood In opposition to This EV

The Dodge Demon 170 is a fever dream of a modern-day muscle automobile. It has a 1,025 horsepower supercharged Hemi V8, it prices nearly $100,000, and its producer claims a jaw-dropping 1.66-second zero to 60 mph time. For anybody who ever owned or loved the long term of the soon-to-be discontinued Dodge Challenger, that is the automobile’s remaining type, made to ship the mannequin out with a bang.

And it would not stand an opportunity in a drag race in opposition to the electrical Lucid Air Sapphire. 

“I do know, I do know, we had been all hoping for a a lot nearer end result,” Hagerty’s Jason Cammisa mentioned in a brand new video the place America’s final gas-powered muscle automobile takes on America’s final electrical car. “Even the Lucid of us, who had been right here rooting for the Demon. However we tried and we tried and we tried and we tried.”

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Now, let’s be truthful right here and observe means up excessive that this sequence of quarter-mile runs pitted the Demon in opposition to a vastly costlier automobile. As dear because the Dodge is, the Sapphire too is the last word expression of the Air lineup and it prices round $250,500. Give the Dodge some severe factors for having the ability to compete in any respect in what’s basically a supercar’s value class. And, sure, they’re additionally very completely different vehicles that can enchantment to very completely different folks. 

However it’s nonetheless a outstanding exhibiting for the Sapphire, which boasts 1,234 horsepower, 427 miles of vary and sufficient plush comforts to make the Mercedes EQS really feel nearly irrelevant. I assume that having the ability to smoke Dodge’s greatest muscle automobile is only one additional advantage, in case you can afford it.

On this Hagerty check, Cammisa and crew throw the final Challenger in opposition to the Air Sapphire in a sequence of quarter-mile runs in two locations. They begin on the common Willow Springs Raceway, the place the Dodge instantly—and I imply instantly—will get walked by the Lucid.

The EV crosses the end line nearly 400 toes forward of the muscle automobile, operating the quarter in simply 9.2 seconds at 158 mph. It hit 60 mph in simply 2.1 seconds alongside the best way, thanks largely to its all-wheel-drive dual-motor traction benefit. So regardless that the Dodge is on Mickey Thompson drag radials, it is nonetheless outclassed right here. 

Lucid Dodge Drag Race Leaderboard

Cammisa notes the Air’s traction management programs are vastly extra superior, having the ability to regulate energy output as much as 1,000 instances per second on every rear wheel individually in addition to on the entrance ones. That is quicker, Cammisa says, “than the Dodge’s pc can pull engine energy and add it again in.”

“The vehicles could have almost equivalent power-to-weight ratios, however that is greater than only a battle of RWD vs. AWD,” he says. “On the one hand, we’ve decades-old pc expertise attempting to regulate piston-engine tech that is a century previous. On the opposite, nicely, we simply have the pace of electrons.” 

So that they resolve to maneuver the competition to a correct drag strip with non-street asphalt, which the Dodge’s tires had been truly designed for. That requires a detour to the VHT-added Famoso Drag Strip, the place… nicely, the result’s principally the identical factor. Over and over, the Lucid nukes the Dodge from orbit. It would not even really feel like a good struggle. I needed to look away towards the top of the video; I simply felt dangerous for the muscle automobile.

So how did they stack up? Not even shut:

Ultimately, this check is additional proof that if American efficiency has a future, it isn’t going to be powered by gasoline, regardless of how a lot folks love the go-fast noises.

And hey, Dodge is engaged on an answer to that too. 

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