Lamborghini could have gone the Dodge Charger route and fitted a “fratzonic exhaust” (or large speaker) to the Lanzador, which was first seen at Monterey Car Week in 2023. But engineering sufficient drama into an electric SUV, even a very fast one, evidently proved too much.
Lamborghini has managed to sell quite a lot of Urus SUVs, but an all-electric alternative with an even higher price tag was probably a stretch.
Credit:
David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Lamborghini has managed to sell quite a lot of Urus SUVs, but an all-electric alternative with an even higher price tag was probably a stretch.
Credit:
David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Dropping the Lanzador EV doesn’t free Lamborghini from meeting decarbonization requirements. The US might have torn up its emissions regulations, but Lamborghini’s US sales were down almost 10 percent last year. Europe is a more important market for the brand, and the European Union still wants to see 90 percent of all new cars be zero-emission by 2035.
As a small manufacturer, Lamborghini will get a little more leeway than Audi or Porsche might, but if it wants to keep selling cars to rich Europeans, it still needs to electrify to some degree, particularly if those Europeans want to drive their cars in cities with zero-emissions zones. Lamborghini drivers tend to do this often—it’s where the people can see you drive past, after all.
So the plan is to produce more plug-in hybrids. In fact, by 2030, the entire Lamborghini lineup will be made of PHEVs. Access to those VW Group electrification resources will be helpful here, but it’s not like Lamborghini hasn’t already started down that path. There’s a PHEV Urus SUV now, plus the 1,001-hp plug-in hybrid V12 Reveulto and the brand-new PHEV Temerario, the replacement for the Huracán.
Ars reached out to Lamborghini for comments on the Lanzador, and we’ll update this article if we hear back.
