Plaid obliterates Sapphire in 3 back to back 1/4 mile runs

[sorka]

Plaid has 1067 peak hp (uncorrected) at the hubs and is already down to 948 hp at 161 mph. So at 200 mph it looks like it would be down to 890 hp where Tesla's plot puts it at 976 hp. That's falling off a lot faster than the perfect horsepower plot that Tesla made available which may be why there are no 155 mph traps.

There are losses due to tire slip, so the hp is not to the road. At max torque there is about 10 percent slip which means 10 percent of the horsepower doesn't make it to the road. This slip begins to decrease outside of the constant torque region. It's about 7 percent at 80 mph where max hp occurs and 3 percent at 160 mph. A drum dyno would measure the road horsepower.

View attachment 1008148

View attachment 1008152

The first dyno run of that same session was higher:

Not sure what you mean by "already". An ICE car makes it's peak HP at one specific RPM. The Plaid's power curve is incredibly flat because of the carbon wrapped rotors which allow high enough RPM before feedback lowers power draw. I'd be shocked if the Sapphire has anything as flat. But who knows. We have yet to see a lucid dyno graph.

 

[sorka]

MPH=HP to weight ratio. The Plaid and the Lucid running the same MPH means the HP/weight ratio is the same. the 1/4 mile difference is traction.

Right, but if traction isn't an issue, the Lucid is supposed to be an 8.9 second car which this one clearly wasn't. Even if it had launched as quickly as the Plaid, by the time traction was no longer an issue, the Sapphire never once started to close the gap. It appears from a power to weight ratio that they are identical in acceleration but the Sapphire lost instead of tying because of traction issues.

 

[Kohley]

Right, but if traction isn't an issue, the Lucid is supposed to be an 8.9 second car which this one clearly wasn't. Even if it had launched as quickly as the Plaid, by the time traction was no longer an issue, the Sapphire never once started to close the gap. It appears from a power to weight ratio that they are identical in acceleration but the Sapphire lost instead of tying because of traction issues.

Lucid isn't running 8.9 unless it can get traction figured out in a big way, meaning better than the Plaid. What the results told me is that the Pliad has traction control figured out better than a lucid, so from a stop light in the real world, the Plaid will own the Lucid. If its a punch race from 40 mph to 120 mph, it will be a dead heat.

 

[sorka]

Lucid isn't running 8.9 unless it can get traction figured out in a big way, meaning better than the Plaid. What the results told me is that the Pliad has traction control figured out better than a lucid, so from a stop light in the real world, the Plaid will own the Lucid. If its a punch race from 40 mph to 120 mph, it will be a dead heat.

If they're even in a dead heat from a roll, like they are in these 3 races where they're acceleration is identical after the Sapphire gains traction, why do you think the Lucid would accelerate faster than the Plaid from a launch if traction wasn't an issue?

I'd say we can just wait for more examples in the wild, but with only 10 Sapphires delivered, it's going to be a long long wait. At the rate they're being delivered, there's no way you can call the Sapphire a production car yet.

 

[Kohley]

If they're even in a dead heat from a roll, like they are in these 3 races where they're acceleration is identical after the Sapphire gains traction, why do you think the Lucid would accelerate faster than the Plaid from a launch if traction wasn't an issue?

I'd say we can just wait for more examples in the wild, but with only 10 Sapphires delivered, it's going to be a long long wait. At the rate they're being delivered, there's no way you can call the Sapphire a production car yet.

Thats not what I said, given same MPH, the best the Lucid can do is equal to the plaid unless it can cut a lower 60 ft time, which is unlikely. The Plaid has traction control better figured out, the Lucid does not. Ive probably logged 1,000 passes at the drag strip in various vehicles.

 

[TIppy]

The first dyno run of that same session was higher:

View attachment 1008156


Not sure what you mean by "already". An ICE car makes it's peak HP at one specific RPM. The Plaid's power curve is incredibly flat because of the carbon wrapped rotors which allow high enough RPM before feedback lowers power draw. I'd be shocked if the Sapphire has anything as flat. But who knows. We have yet to see a lucid dyno graph.

That's corrected data. It's being corrected for the local density altitude which doesn't affect electric motors. That's why they show the uncorrected data later in the video.

I mean "already" because the hp curve isn't as flat as Tesla says it is. At 160 mph it should be 1004 hp, but on the dyno it is only 948 hp. And at 200 mph it's 976 hp vs 890 hp. The dyno curve peak starts at 1067 hp, so the falloff in hp with speed is steeper than Tesla's published curve. I suppose this could be due to windage in the transmission.

The flat hp curve is because the motor is a reluctance motor with permanent magnets that are buried inside the rotor. This allows them to adjust the rotating stator magnetic field to cancel the permanent magnets' magnetic fields at high rpms so they don't generate back emf. Then the motor is generating torque through reluctance alone which doesn't generate back emf.

The carbon wrapping is just to allow the rotor to spin up to higher rpms. That way they can have a single speed transmission that provide good low end torque but also can operate up to 200 mph and beyond. I say beyond because with the Plaid's lower 7.5:1 final ratio the motor isn't spinning any faster at 200 mph than the earlier Performance MS was at 165 mph with its 9.7:1 final drive ratio. It will allow the new roadster to go above 250 mph though.

 

[cptnslo]

That's corrected data. It's being corrected for the local density altitude which doesn't affect electric motors. That's why they show the uncorrected data later in the video.

I mean "already" because the hp curve isn't as flat as Tesla says it is. At 160 mph it should be 1004 hp, but on the dyno it is only 948 hp. And at 200 mph it's 976 hp vs 890 hp. The dyno curve peak starts at 1067 hp, so the falloff in hp with speed is steeper than Tesla's published curve. I suppose this could be due to windage in the transmission.

The flat hp curve is because the motor is a reluctance motor with permanent magnets that are buried inside the rotor. This allows them to adjust the rotating stator magnetic field to cancel the permanent magnets' magnetic fields at high rpms so they don't generate back emf. Then the motor is generating torque through reluctance alone which doesn't generate back emf.

The carbon wrapping is just to allow the rotor to spin up to higher rpms. That way they can have a single speed transmission that provide good low end torque but also can operate up to 200 mph and beyond. I say beyond because with the Plaid's lower 7.5:1 final ratio the motor isn't spinning any faster at 200 mph than the earlier Performance MS was at 165 mph with its 9.7:1 final drive ratio. It will allow the new roadster to go above 250 mph though.

lol someone has a magnetic background

 

[sorka]

That's corrected data. It's being corrected for the local density altitude which doesn't affect electric motors. That's why they show the uncorrected data later in the video.

Can you post a link for that? I did not see that when reading either of the articles that posted this screenshot.

 

[sorka]

I mean "already" because the hp curve isn't as flat as Tesla says it is. At 160 mph it should be 1004 hp, but on the dyno it is only 948 hp. And at 200 mph it's 976 hp vs 890 hp. The dyno curve peak starts at 1067 hp, so the falloff in hp with speed is steeper than Tesla's published curve. I suppose this could be due to windage in the transmission.

It's far flatter than any curve we've ever seen from an EV before. My P85D curve on the dyno was half the power at 100 mph as it was at 30 mph.

 

[TIppy]

Can you post a link for that? I did not see that when reading either of the articles that posted this screenshot.

It's printed right on the bottom of this image. They don't mention multiple pulls. The image you posted is "real time" as they did the pull. Then they immediately fade into the uncorrected plots.

 

[TIppy]

It's far flatter than any curve we've ever seen from an EV before. My P85D curve on the dyno was half the power at 100 mph as it was at 30 mph.

Absolutely, it's better than a P85D. That had induction motors that are subject to back emf and limited battery voltage. The Plaid has an excellent hp vs speed curve. I'm just saying it doesn't look like it's as good as Tesla says it is. Sort of like the hp they claimed for your P85D.

 

[sorka]

Absolutely, it's better than a P85D. That had induction motors that are subject to back emf and limited battery voltage. The Plaid has an excellent hp vs speed curve. I'm just saying it doesn't look like it's as good as Tesla says it is. Sort of like the hp they claimed for your P85D.

Except that they over promised and under delivered on the p8d but under promised and over delivered on the Plaid. It makes quite a bit more power than promised.

 

[TIppy]

Except that they over promised and under delivered on the p8d but under promised and over delivered on the Plaid. It makes quite a bit more power than promised.

My point is the curve is not as flat as Tesla says. This car has 47 hp more at the peak but 86 hp less at 200 mph than the perfect horsepower plot.This car's hp decreases by 177 from 80 mph to 200 mph, whereas Teslas plot shows a loss of only 62 hp. Also, this could be a car that has more hp than average. Nevertheless, it's still a great improvement from earlier Teslas.

Also found this in the video. Note that "Raw Data" isn't checked inside the green oval I added near the top right of the monitor.

 

[Drew-MS]

Except that they over promised and under delivered on the p8d but under promised and over delivered on the Plaid.

Except the 155mph trap speed

 

[sorka]

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Perfect prep. Same results. Almost a second slower than it's supposed to be.

 

[sorka]

Rematch!

 

[empiredown]

Wow. That COPO!

And three times the price for less than a car length that night. Pretty interesting for sure.

 

[NeuroRad]

Was awesome seeing the plaid get gapped by the camaro.

Now, as I mentioned last time the sapphire running slower than the tesla was purely technical. The Lucid is set up from the factory for track use whereas the plaid is set up for drag racing. Even still the sapphire was still spinning from a dig here. Do the runs again in hot weather and i bet sapphires goes 8s.

 

[Yblue]

I think having the VP of customer service from Lucid contact the owner about the original times and how to extract better times says a lot about how close in performance the cars are. It means little adjustments like tire pressure makes a world of difference. Lowering your tire psi means great for traction but bad for overall tire wear and range... That being said, stickier 19" tires on the plaid if there are any on the market available would do wonders to lower times further.... The ps4 are a much better tire than the pzero on the plaid.

 

[ginmqi]

Would lowering the tire psi to the plaid have similar performance improvements? Running at less than 40psi like they did with Lucid?

I also read in another 1/4 mile thread that you should leave the drag strip mode for some time before launching as it keeps conditioning the battery.

How fast can the plaid be if a Tesla engineer phoned that dude and 'optimized' the plaid?