Lamborghini Cancels EV Development

Lamborghini’s CEO has confirmed that the company will not be building the Lanzador EV and has basically sworn off the concept of all-electric vehicles. Instead, the Italian brand stated that it’ll be prioritizing hybrid models to deliver both performance and emissions compliance.

The Lanzador, which was previewed in 2023 and delayed in 2024, won’t be scrapped entirely. CEO Stephan Winkelmann has simply confirmed that it won’t be an all-electric model — nor will any Lamborghini product for the foreseeable future.

According to The Sunday Times, Winkelmann suggested that continued development of EVs was running the risk of becoming “an expensive hobby” for the automaker. Considering how much of a money pit all-electric vehicles have become for some other brands, this is a legitimate concern.

While some automakers have had good luck with EVs, many others have poured the brunt of their development dollars into projects that haven’t yielded successful models. This not only created duds that weren’t selling, it also detracted from the development of other non-electric models that might have sold better.

One would think that this shouldn’t matter for a company like Lamborghini, however. All-electric hypercars already exist and have the capability to yield unparalleled levels of acceleration. Considering that the average Lambo customer can likewise afford to install high-capacity chargers in their garage, and undoubtedly has more practical vehicles on standby, an EV should make some amount of sense.

But Lamborghini trades largely on aesthetics and emotion. The cars need to be showy and interesting, while also offering excellent performance and enough usability to be taken out for the weekend. These are things that can be accomplished without a massive battery pack. EVs also frequently lack the same emotional appeal of something with an exhaust port, which is another big risk for a company like Lamborghini.

Hybrids split the difference and will allegedly represent the brand’s future, making it possible for the brand to keep combustion engines for “as long as possible.”

From The Sunday Times:

Winkelmann told The Sunday Times that the “acceptance curve” for battery-powered cars in Lamborghini’s target market was flattening and “close to zero”.

The company’s customers, he said, valued the “emotional experience” of their Lamborghinis — whether design, raw performance or, crucially, the distinctive sound and feedback of the internal combustion engine.

“EVs, in their current form, struggle to deliver this specific emotional connection,” he explained, confirming that noise — or lack of it, remains a crucial selling point in the luxury car market.

So the Lanzador will become a hybrid model, presumably in a similar vein to the likewise hybridized Porsche 918 Spyder, Ferrari LaFerrari, and McLaren P1. Those models successfully managed to showcase how far automakers could push hybrid powertrains in terms of adding performance. However, some of them do retain a few efficiency features in an attempt to drive home some lesson about sustainability.

It’s largely meaningless. For example, the McLaren P1 boasts an “e-Mode” that allows it to be driven extremely slowly on battery power alone. The feature isn’t particularly useful and the car remains a wildly expensive and impractical bauble for extremely rich households producing a larger environmental impact in a single weekend than you do all year. But this lets the manufacturer claim that “sustainability” is at the heart of the beast while improving its fuel economy beyond would never have been possible without a hybrid system.

Automakers have to comply with modern emissions regulations somehow and supercar brands have learned that hybrids can be a big help while boosting performance in the process. While purely eclectic vehicles could also do this, a lack of interest in EVs has made them a liability for numerous brands.

Like many companies, Lamborghini has been in the process of abandoning previous plans to pivot its lineup exclusively to battery only automobiles by 2029. Instead, the company now believes it can position its entire lineup to be hybrid models by 2030.

“The decision was made after over a year of continuous internal discussion, engaging with customers, dealers, market analysis and global data,” Winkelmann explained.

“Investing heavily in full-EV development when the market and customer base are not ready would be an expensive hobby, and financially irresponsible towards shareholders, customers [and] to our employees and their families,” he added.”

“Plug-in hybrids offer the best of both worlds, combining the agility and low-rev boost of electric battery technology with the emotion and power output of an internal combustion engine.”

Officially, Lamborghini has not ruled out building all-electric models further down the line. However, with so many automakers already reneging on past promises of all-electric lineups, statements like that aren’t particularly valuable. But that doesn’t mean the Italian company is making a mistake.

Winkelmann framed the decision as being purely financial. Running with EVs simply represented too great a risk for the continued wellbeing of the brand. But he also noted that emissions regulations, especially those in Europe, are becoming so stringent that it’s becoming difficult to plot out future development.

Shifting toward EVs was supposed to be a way to futureproof the brand as economy standards increased and many markets were plotting to ban everything other than purely electric vehicles. However, customers have not signaled they’re interested in buying them — creating a major rift between what regulators want and what people will actually purchase.

Lamborghini’s own market research suggested that customers wouldn’t have even bought the all-electric version of the Urus SUV it was planning, so its development was likewise cancelled before the car was ready for market.

“We couldn’t risk [a Urus EV]. The supercars are a very tiny segment,” Winkelmann noted. “Even if the margins of the supercars are higher than on Urus, it’s clear the Urus segment is bigger and more stable.”

[Images: Lamborghini]

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