SPY PICS: 2024 Lamborghini Urus PHEV spotted

It’s no secret the Lamborghini Urus will soon be electrified before it’s eventually replaced by a battery-electric successor, but what the plug-in hybrid version will look like has been unknown so far.

However, our German spy photographers have just snapped this heavily camouflaged prototype pumping out laps of the Nürburgring covered in all sorts of high-voltage warning stickers.

It’s clear from the images there won’t be too many outlandish cosmetic changes made to what will be the series three Urus, but we can see tweaks have already been made to the headlights, front bumper and bonnet – most likely in the name of aero efficiency.

An extra bit of menace wouldn’t go astray either, given this new electrified version could ultimately replace the current Urus S and Performante versions and pack significantly more power and torque.

The Urus has long been the ultra-high-performance relative of the Porsche Cayenne, Audi Q8 and Bentley Bentayga, so it shouldn’t be a surprise to many to hear the next Urus will sport the same twin-turbo 4.0-litre V8 plug-in hybrid powertrain as the latest Cayenne Turbo E-Hybrid, albeit with the 544kW/950Nm outputs dialed up even further.

A kiloWatt count approaching 600 and more than 1000Nm of torque are both very much on the cards for what will be the second-biggest but heaviest Raging Bull product to date, as Lambo plots to establish itself at the top of the ultra-high-performance SUV market and put rivals like the Aston Martin DBX and Ferrari Purosangue back in their places.

Rumour has it the Urus PHEV could end up with the eight-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission out of the Revuelto supercar, but our sources dispute this on the grounds of the engineering hardship involved in adapting both the transmission and powertrain to work with each other, seeing as the Lambo’s 8DCT is a transaxle arrangement while the Porsche’s PHEV system has been developed around an eight-speed torque converter.

Nevertheless, there’s little doubt the electrified Urus will be fast and could trim the Performante’s claimed 0-100km/h acceleration time down from 3.6 to 3.5 seconds or even less.

Porsche says the Cayenne Turbo E-Hybrid will top out at 295km/h, so there’s every reason to expect the Lambo version to top 300km/h as per its combustion-powered forebears.

Spy photos: Automedia

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