Priced at just US$290,000, Drako's new Dragon hyper-SUV looks like the most comfy and practical way by far to get from 0-60 mph (0-96 km/h) in 1.9 seconds. This Model X-killer combines outrageous power with huge-screen luxury and doors that go up.
OK, "just" 290 grand is a chunk of change to spend on a car. But it's not much more than the US$230-odd thousand you'd spend on a Lamborghini Urus, and heaps cheaper than Ferrari's US$400,000-and-upward Purosangue, so it's definitely in the ballpark if you're looking at super-SUVs. And whatever you think of the looks, the Dragon will merrily defecate on both of these, and pretty much anything else, from a great height when it comes to performance.
It's no contest at all; you can make more or less as much power as you feel like with an all-electric powertrain, and Drako has opted for the full banana of two thousand ponies, as well as some presumably horrific but unspecified torque output, from its 4-motor powertrain. That makes it pretty much as powerful as any other production car you can buy.
If soccer practice is a quarter of a mile away, Drako says you can get the kids there in around nine seconds, although you'll be moving at a rate of knots and coach had best be prepared to talk them out of a state of shivering post-traumatic stress. Should you be possessed by sufficient hubris to hold the go-pedal down, the Dragon will pass the 200-mph (322-km/h) mark and continue accelerating.
In essence, if you're sitting at the traffic lights in this five-seat family carriage, you have nothing to fear but fear itself, and possibly the very occasional Rimac Nevera or theoretical future Tesla Roadster with rockets on the back. Anything else will gobble your dust and curse your name, including the vast majority of multi-million dollar fancy-pants hypercars. Some of them will catch up above 200 mph, but you can just back off and pretend you're not trying any more, grinning at them as they do the ol' loser's flyby and reminding them at the next set of lights that you can traumatize up to four passengers at a time, plus a considerable amount of luggage.
That luggage all has to live at the back; the Dragon offers no frunk. Where the front storage could've been, there's an outrageous speed hole borrowed from the hypersports world, creating a front wing and air passage that helps create downforce. There are flappy, scoopy things at the sides of the front bumper and on the rear haunches too, which Drako says also offer aerodynamic functionality, although between you and me I suspect these would struggle to justify themselves as much more than spiffy styling touches. No judgement here, I say if you make a 2,000 horsepower SUV, you're allowed to zhoosh it up 'til it's as fierce and fabulous as Beyoncé.
The colossal gull-wing doors open the sides of the car up so wide that both front and back-seat passengers can get in with a reasonable degree of dignity, without having to endure the shameful act of folding the front seats forward to do it. Once you're in there, you can take your mind off the imminent, lung-compressing terror of high-G acceleration by staring at even bigger screens than the ones on your phone or laptop.
The infotainment system in the dash spans a full 17.1 inches, and looks comically enormous. There are two more in the back seats that look almost as big, dangling a little crudely from the front seat headrest. In a family of five, only the kid in the middle misses out, and is forced instead to watch the scenery streak and blur as if the Dragon's making the jump to hyperspace. Such is life for middle-seat kids, you know who you are and must spend your lifetime striving to overcome your station.
Drako fully expects people to take these things off-road, to some degree. As such, it has fitted suspension capable of lowering the car to just 6.4 inches (16.3 cm) of ground clearance for hard-charging racetrack driving, or lifting it up to offer 12.4 inches (31.5 cm) of clearance in an "overland" setting that might also help your grandma get in without blowing out her foofer valve.
Drako is taking reservation deposits now, expecting to begin delivering customer cars in 2026. It plans to ramp production up to 5,000 units a year by some point ... if there's enough lithium. Check out a video below.
Source: Drako Motors
