It was back in May when Lamborghini announced to launch plug-in hybrid versions of the Huracan and Aventador replacements as well as a PHEV variant of the Urus SUV. The electrifying disclosure also included the promise of a fourth model line, one that would arrive in the second half of the decade as a pure EV. In a recent interview with Yahoo Finance, Lamborghini chairman and CEO Stephan Winkelmann talked a bit about how it aims to prepare the Sant’Agata Bolognese company to comply with increasingly stricter emissions regulations.
The head honcho reiterated the two sports cars will become plug-in hybrids in the following years once the time will come to replace the aging V12 Aventador and the V10 Huracan mid-engined machines. Two “more versatile vehicles” are on the agenda, with one of them being the facelifted Urus scheduled to arrive in 2022 likely with a charging port.
As for the mysterious EV, the 57-year-old German executive mentioned Lamborghini’s first zero-emissions model will probably arrive either in 2027 or 2028. While he refrained from revealing the body style, it is believed to be a four-seat, two-door gran tourer riding on the Volkswagen Group’s upcoming highly modular SSP platform. It will serve as an evolution and combination of MEB and next year’s PPE (Porsche Macan EV, Audi Q6 E-Tron).
Now that Rimac and Bugatti are in cahoots, the Lambo without an internal combustion engine could benefit from the expertise gained by the Croatian hypercar marque while developing the Nevera. Launching a GT makes sense as it would allow the Italian brand to enter a new segment, thus offering great potential for even better sales.
Stephan Winkelmann believes there is a real opportunity to keep gasoline engines alive and make them CO2 neutral by using synthetic fuels, which Porsche has been working on for many years. He thinks it could be suitable for performance cars, but now is not the right time to decide whether the company should pursue synthetic fuels.
Meanwhile, Lamborghini is spending more than €1.5 billion to hybridize its current three-model portfolio until 2025 when it aims to cut CO2 emissions in half compared to 2021 levels. A portion of the investment is allocated to researching carbon fiber, with the goal being to cut weight and offset the added bulk associated with a hybrid powertrain.
Source: Yahoo Finance
