Lamborghini Urus SE review

Electrification has become inevitable even for the Rambo Lambo

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When Mini launched the previous generation of the electric hatch, it called the car Cooper SE in most markets but decided to go simply with ‘Electric’ in the UK in order to avoid confusion with the common trim level name.

There have been no such qualms with the new Lamborghini Urus SE, which isn’t the fleet-friendly version with 17in wheels and cloth seats, but effectively the facelift of the Sant’Agata firm’s controversial but successful sports SUV. Like the new Bentley Continental GT Speed (with which it shares a platform and a drivetrain), it also becomes a plug-in hybrid. So in a way, it is more company car friendly than before.

Clearly, the 37-mile pure-electric range and low on-paper CO2 output aren’t the result of Lamborghini wanting to save the planet. Official fleet CO2 quotas apply to everyone, including Lamborghini, and this is its way of continuing to sell V8 super-SUVs.

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DESIGN & STYLING

02 Lamborghini Urus SE IV 2024 review front driving

Lamborghini is quite proud that it’s not ‘downsizing’ its engine. It's still the 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 (albeit with slightly less power than before, at 611bhp instead of 641bhp), just augmented by a 189bhp electric motor inside the eight-speed automatic gearbox. It has also seen fit to one-up its Volkswagen Group mates from Crewe and squeeze just a bit more power out of the powertrain: a total of 789bhp (a nice round 800PS), as opposed to the 772bhp in the Bentley.

Aside from the raw power and acceleration, the engineers have found a few ways to use the electrification to make the Urus a bit more playful as well. Instead of the Torsen centre differential on the old Urus, this new one has a fully variable clutch pack. Combined with the new e-LSD at the back and the instant, lag-free power delivery, the car’s brain is much better able to send power where it’s most needed – be it for stability and traction, or for exciting the rear axle.

You’ll recognise a Urus SE by the updated light signature. The front end has been redesigned with slightly softer-looking headlights and a bonnet that runs all the way to the front. This eliminates the previous shutline and gives the car a slightly softer, less chiselled look. At the rear, the lights are set in a ‘grille’ trim piece. We’re told it references the facelifted Gallardo. Naturally, there are some new wheels, including a set of very intricate 23in items, while 21in silver ones remain available too and – almost – make the Urus look restrained.

INTERIOR

09 Lamborghini Urus SE IV 2024 review dashboard

Inside, the changes are relatively minor, and most of what we said in our review of the original Lamborghini Urus still applies. The main one is the redesigned centre stack, which now accommodates a slightly bigger touchscreen. It’s still nicely integrated into the dashboard rather than just plonked on top, and the software is basically the same as you’d find in an Audi SQ7, just with a hexagon-heavy Lamborghini skin over it. It works well enough and doesn’t require the firm presses that Audi systems usually do, although the menu structure can be a tad convoluted.

Crucially, the bigger screen hasn’t usurped any proper buttons, because Lamborghini reckons that tactility is important. That’s most obvious in the 'tamburo' (that’s drum in Italian) unit for the drive and mode selector. Even just putting the car into EV mode elicits an audible clonk – technically unnecessary, but a Lamborghini is all about theatre.

Everything else is mostly as before, with plenty of high-quality leather, carbonfibre and Alcantara. It’s a big car with plenty of space, though the boot floor has got a bit higher to accommodate the battery pack. You still sit remarkably low for an SUV (have you considered an estate?) with excellent adjustability in all the controls.

ENGINES & PERFORMANCE

13 Lamborghini Urus SE IV 2024 review front driving performance

As we found with the Mercedes-AMG C63, the performance gain of hot plug-in hybrids is not so much in the standing-start straight-line acceleration. The Urus SE does 0-62mph in 3.4sec – only 0.1sec quicker than the outgoing Urus S.

What the electric assistance does is give this heavily boosted and therefore naturally laggy V8 engine instant and mighty response, as well as mind-scrambling in-gear acceleration. Any speed, any gear, the Urus SE just goes. This is best experienced in one of the spicier drive modes (where the engine is always running) and with the gearbox in manual mode, so that it won’t kick down.

It sounds great too, with an authentic V8 bellow. That said, combining this level of performance with a well-isolated cabin makes for a car that gets you to very big speeds very quickly and, concerningly, you’re only aware of that when you look down at a big number. Let’s be honest: it’s all a bit much for the road.

When you settle down and use it like you would any other plug-in hybrid SUV, it’s perhaps not quite as impressive. Leave it in the standard Strada (road) mode and, even with a full battery, the engine will kick in annoyingly early sometimes, even though there’s plenty of electric power available. Getting 37 miles of range from a massive 21.8kWh is a bit rubbish too. The brake pedal also doesn’t have quite the same progression as that of a pure-petrol Urus, though it’s decent enough for a plug-in hybrid.

RIDE & HANDLING

14 Lamborghini Urus SE 2024 review front cornering off road

Then again, one of Lamborghini’s people admitted that they don’t expect owners to plug their Uruses in much, so they might not even care about electric running. Indeed, much more exciting is the Urus’s new-found ability to go sideways and bonfire its tyres.

The old Torsen centre differential was set to a fixed torque split and could only react to a loss of traction, whereas this new fully variable clutch pack can proactively send power forwards and backwards. The engineers say it works predictively, so that if you hoof it out of a corner with the ESC off, it assumes you want to go sideways, and pushes a load of power to the outside rear wheel.

Lamborghini amply demonstrated this with a ‘drift experience’ and a drive on a short rally stage at the Nardò proving ground, where it held the international launch. It’s not subtle, and you have to be very deliberate with your inputs to make the car’s brain understand whether you want to initiate, sustain or end a slide, but once you learn its language, the Urus does a remarkably convincing rally car impression. You can use the considerable weight to get it sideways before a corner or make it transition into another slide the other way, then get hard on the gas to get it to four-wheel drift through.

We’ll need more quality time on the road to really say how that all translates, because the roads around Nardò could hardly have been more bleak and uninspiring. That’s probably why Lamborghini chose to shoot the pretty pictures not there but in Tuscany.

First impressions are that in the standard Strada mode, the Urus is as docile as a Tiguan, but swap to Sport mode and the drivetrain and the four-wheel steering are primed to make this 2.5-tonne SUV feel super-agile. The way it wants to rotate on the power is pretty cartoonish – inappropriate for an Audi, ideal for a Lamborghini. With all the chassis tech on board, the Urus SE hides its weight pretty well.

For a hybrid SUV, the Urus SE is pretty hardcore, then. That’s reflected in the ride. Despite Strada mode being a tad softer than before because the new dual-valve dampers are able to give the suspension more bandwidth, the ride is still firm. It's well damped and closely controlled but leaves you in no doubt about what’s happening under the wheels.

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MPG & RUNNING COSTS

01 Lamborghini Urus SE IV 2024 review lead driving

The SE is now the only Urus you can buy, so you get a hybrid whether you want it or not. It’s a safe bet that even faster and more hardcore versions, as well as some special editions, will be along soon enough, however.

The price has gone up, from £188,000 for the Urus S in 2022, to £208,000 for the new SE. Considering inflation and all the hybrid kit the SE gets, that jump doesn’t seem too horrendous. In any case, it’s hard to imagine many prospective owners losing much sleep about the higher entry price.

VERDICT

17 Lamborghini Urus SE 2024 review twin static

The Lamborghini Urus SE is a very contradictory car. From a complying-with-environmental-rules point of view, the hybridisation was surely necessary, even if it arguably has the opposite effect in reality, and will matter little to customers. The electrification has allowed the chassis engineers to do some really extraordinary things and might just have made this the most entertaining super-SUV on sale. Then again, that’s a fairly absurd concept in itself.

At the end of the day, the Urus has done spectacularly well for Lamborghini – the company sold almost three times as many cars last year as it did in 2017 – because there’s real appetite for what it offers. If the SE allows it to continue doing that, that seems like a win all round.

Illya Verpraet

Illya Verpraet Road Tester Autocar
Title: Road Tester

As part of Autocar’s road test team, Illya drives everything from superminis to supercars, and writes reviews, comparison tests, as well as the odd feature and news story. 

Much of his time is spent wrangling the data logger and wielding the tape measure to gather the data for Autocar’s eight-page road tests, which are the most rigorous in the business thanks to independent performance, fuel consumption and noise figures.