Lamborghini preparing electric shock
Italian supercar maker wants zero-emission vehicles in its line-up, likely to be based on Porsche Mission ELamborghini has announced it would be open to introducing a pure-electric vehicle into its line-up, hinting the famous Italian car maker is preparing to, once again, deviate from its famous supercar and GT heritage.
Speaking to newswire Automotive News at last week's Geneva motor show, Lambo's CEO Stefano Domenicali said: Electrification is an area of great attention for us, but I'm not expecting it will happen in the short term".
When pushed to explain his comments further, Domenicali said that he didn't expect a pure-electric vehicle to arrive before 2025.
The challenge, says Lamborghini's boss, would be to develop EVs to match today's supercar's handling, weight and performance targets.
Set to share development costs, hardware and battery tech with Porsche's Mission E, it's likely the new pure-electric vehicle will come with the German Tesla-rival's two electric motors that, combined, produces more than 440kW.
This, it's thought, should guarantee the Lamborghini with a sub-4.0 second 0-100km/h time.
It's range, meanwhile, is likely to exceed the Mission E's 500km while future 800V chargers should ensure an 80 per cent charge takes less than 15 minutes.
The former Ferrari Formula One boss already has a challenge on his hands in launching Lamborghini's first ever SUV in its 54-year history, although the arrival of an exotic Range Rover Sport-rival is expected to double today's sales of 3457 units.
Set to be unveiled at the end of this year, the Urus is expected to arrive in Australia in late 2018 and feature plug-in hybrid tech by 2020.
To help protect the exclusivity of the brand, Domencali confirmed that Lamborghini will initially artificially cap sales of its Huracan and Aventador models to 3500 sales a year. Later on, as markets expand, the Italian CEO says this will be raised slightly to 3800 units, but no more.
"We must be prudent", Domencali told Automotive News. "Of course, we will grow sustainably, but being in the luxury market we must not take every growth potential that is there" he said.
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