Skip to main content

Lamborghini Not Yet Sold on Idea of EV Supercar

Lamborghini won’t rush a pure electric supercar to market as it doesn’t believe the current battery technology is adequate.

Speaking at the Automotive News Europe Congress this week, Lamborghini Chief Technical Officer Maurizio Reggiani said that no battery currently exists that could fulfill its expectations for a supercar. The Italian automaker says that it would only produce an EV if it could exceed 186 mph and complete three laps of the Nurburgring without the power dipping off or the battery going flat.

“Our target is to deliver a super sports car, and these specifications don’t exist with a battery package in terms of energy and power,” Reggiani said.

The automaker revealed its future vision for an EV supercar late last year with the Terzo Millenio concept (above). The concept introduced new battery technology theories, such as a carbon fiber nanotube body that doubled as the vehicle’s battery pack and supercapacitors that could easily capture and release energy as needed. It was developed in part with MIT and is part of a larger partnership with the university that Lamborghini hopes will result in a battery that meets or exceeds its expectations. Until that happens,  Lamborghini won’t be wasting its time and resources on a pure EV.

Battery tech isn’t the only thing holding an electric Lamborghini back. Sound is another major factor, Lamborghini says, and it’s easy to see why. The company is known for its screaming V12s and V10s and it’s just not ready to trade its signature internal combustion engine soundtrack in for silence. Its customers probably aren’t, either, so its decision not to rush an EV supercar to market should sit just fine with its fans.

That doesn’t mean Lamborghini is shunning electricity entirely, though. The automaker is expected to roll out a plug-in hybrid version of its new Urus SUV sometime this year. The plug-in SUV will likely feature a 4.0-liter V8 and electric motor making a minimum of 680 hp and 626 lb-ft of torque – the same setup that appears in the Porsche Cayenne Turbo S E-Hybrid. The automaker is also expected to roll out plug-in versions of its mid-engine supercars as well, but it’s not yet clear when they may arrive.

No rush, Lamborghini. You do you, and car enthusiasts will continue to love you for it.

[Source: Automotive News Europe]

a version of this story first appeared on AutoGuide

The post Lamborghini Not Yet Sold on Idea of EV Supercar appeared first on VWVortex.



from VWVortex https://ift.tt/2MaLp1T
via IFTTT
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Project SportWagen: Going Stage 2 with APR

    When we last left you, the humble little SportWagen was fresh from the development process with our friends at AWE Tuning, sporting a new downpipe, exhaust and intake, allowing things to breathe a bit easier.  The car sounded great, but there was no getting around the fact that our wagon was still quite, well, slow.   While we realize that nothing we do to the Golf SportWagen at this point will make it a race car, we still felt compelled to do something .  To put it bluntly, we had a fever, and the only cure was more power. Flash forward a few hours, and we found ourselves at Waterfest, staring down APR’s palatial spread and the numerous tuned vehicles surrounding it.  Earlier in the year, APR had hinted to us that their 1.8 TSI files would be quite impressive, and based on what they were able to do with the 2.0 TSI found in the new GTI and our time in their Golf R, we knew it’d be worth the wait.  So with this in mind, we lined our G...
Post a Comment
Read more

Project Golf SportWagen- Intro

I’ve never really been one for SUVs and crossovers.  The current offerings aren’t the body-on-frame, go-anywhere specialty tools I remember from my youth, and what they lack in capability, they also lack in on-road performance. The current crop isn’t terribly good at handling or being efficient, which in my opinion are major components of our ideal driving experience.  So when it comes to space or utility, I usually look for something of the wagon variety- and it seems that I’m not alone. We hit quite a few shows around the east coast each summer, and we see modified Jetta SportWagens at nearly every event. Even amongst common consumers, these cars are highly sought-after. They don’t depreciate much, making even early Mk 5 2.5 versions expensive in comparison to other Jettas or Golfs of the same vintage. This year, Volkswagen launched their latest SportWagen, which is now billed as a Golf.  In many ways, this latest SportWagen is the best yet and it has certai...
Post a Comment
Read more

Volkswagen Group Records Best Ever First-Half-of-Year Sales

With 5.5 million vehicles in customer hands after the first six months of 2018, the Volkswagen Group is seeing the best performance of its history. Group deliveries increased significantly in all core regions,” said Fred Kappler, head of sales for the Group. “Our core brands recorded strong growth in the first half year.” For the year-to-date, all of Volkswagen’s brands had sales bumps. MAN, SEAT, and Skoda led the sales charge with performances 24%, 17% and 11% better than the previous year. The big sellers, too, had strong sales periods, with Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, Audi, and Volkswagen sales rising 3.5%, 4.5% and 6.3% respectively. That last figure is particularly good new for the board, since Volkswagen alone sold more than 3 million vehicles in the first half of 2018. As Kappler stated, the numbers are equally good when you break sales down by region. Brazil and Russia were the most improved markets (22% and 20%, respectively), while strong sales in Europe and China (u...
2 comments
Read more