Lamborghini will electrify its line-up in stages over the coming years, introducing the hybridised Aventador successor in 2023, a Lamborghini Urus PHEV in 2024, a Lamborghini Huracán hybrid in 2025 and a pure EV in a new segment around 2028.
Confirming the company's hybridisation plan to Autocar, company CEO Stephan Winkelmann estimated that the electrification of the firm's two super-sports car and big-selling super-SUV could slash CO2 emissions to around half of their current levels.
Asked if the company's customers are ready to switch into electrified models, Winkelmann said: "For sure, they are ready for hybridisation because we always said we don't need to be the first ones, but when we kick in, we need to be the best, and this is something we strongly believe is going to happen."
The newly confirmed timeframe means 2022 will be the last year Lamborghini has a pure-combustion line-up - ushering in electrification to its series-production models exactly 60 years on from the reveal of its debut model, the 350GT, at the 1963 Turin motor show.
"By 2025 we will offer only hybrid cars in our line-up," said Winkelmann. "This is to reduce CO2 emissions by at least 50%."
In the six years before it launches a pure-electric car, Lamborghini will follow sibling brands Porsche and Bentley in endowing its current line-up with an electrical power boost and EV-only running capabilities, but Winkelmann was keen to emphasise that it will not necessarily join those two firms in offering a V6 power plant.
"We are not planning a V6 engine," he told Autocar, adding that big engines in the vein of the Huracán's V10 and the Aventador's V12 are "part of our heritage".
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A big challenge for Lamborghini and its close rivals will be minimising the weight of all these hybrid and EV cars. Weight is a killer for accceleration and handling. A lot of the BEV cars being launched at the moment are saloons and SUVs, so expectations for driving dynamics are lowered.
Low weight is wishful thinking. Get used to it. The SF90 weighs between 1600 and 1700kg in the real world. The 298 I'm sure won't weigh much less albeit only 6cyls and 2wd.
The Aventador, for all its carbon fibre, didn't really weigh much less than a F12 even when taking its AWD into account.