Lamborghini confirmed plans in 2021 to launch an electric vehicle as its fourth model range later in the decade, but don’t count on it being a supercar.
In an interview with Motor1 published on Monday, Lamborghini’s chief research and development officer, Rouven Mohr, said EV technology is not yet advanced enough to be truly ready for supercar applications. He also said it might not be ready in five or six years.
“For supercars, we believe that the time is not right now [for EVs]and probably the next five, six years, too,” he said.
The reason? It’s not a lack of speed, as companies like Rimac and Lotus have demonstrated with their respective electric hypercars Nevera and Evija, but rather the heavy weight of EVs and their lack of consistent power.
Rouven Mohr
“We want to avoid this additional weight,” he said. “We want to avoid that the performance is heavily dependent on the state of charge of the battery and the temperature.”
Lamborghini hasn’t said what form its first electric vehicle will take, but former CEO Stefano Domenicali hinted at a fourth model range in 2019 that will likely be a 2+2 grand tourer, something like a modern-day Espada.
Lamborghini will also add electrification to its next generation of supercars. A successor to the Aventador, which will appear in the spring, will have a newly developed V12 engine in combination with plug-in hybrid technology. The eventual successor to the Huracán is also expected to go the plug-in hybrid route, albeit perhaps with a supercharged V-8 instead of the Huracán’s V-10.
