Charging Bull: Lamborghini Boss Outlines Electrification Strategy, Readies EV Fourth Model Line for 2025+

Lamborghini CEO Stephan Winkelmann has announced a plan to bring electric assistance to every single of the brand’s models by 2024 and put its first ever EV on the road before the end of the decade.

The plan, called Direzione Cor Tauri (Towards Cor Tauri) and referencing Lamborghini’s famous bull logo and Cor Tauri, the brightest star in the Taurus constellation, contains a step-by-step roadmap to electrification over the course of the next decade that will put the brand’s first mainstream hybrid on the road by 2023. Moreover, by 2025 Lamborghini hopes to have slashed CO2 emissions to half their current level by extending hybrid power to the full Lamborghini line-up.

The first phase of the plan will take place during 2021-22 and focus on celebrating the combustion engine, or probably more accurately, waving goodbye to it in its current naturally aspirated, non-hybrid form. Lamborghini says it will reveal two new V12 cars during 2021, one of which is likely to be a rumoured Countach tribute and the second some kind of commemorative model to send-off the current V12 powertrain in style.

In 2023 the focus switches from looking backwards to looking forwards. That’s when Lamborghini will launch its first hybrid series production car, and only the company’s second ever electrically assisted model after the limited run Sian. The new hybrids are the first fruit of a massive €1.5 billion ($1.8 billion) investment, the biggest in Lamborghini history, allocated over four years.

Lamborghini didn’t give details about that initial hybrid, but it could be either the replacement for the Aventador, or a PHEV Urus. Whichever comes first, we know that both will be on sale by 2024, as will a V8-hybrid successor to the Huracan, because the brand’s roadmap says its entire range will be electrified by that date.

But the most exciting part of the announcement is Lamborghini’s confirmation that it is working on a fourth model line, an EV that will be introduced during the second half of the decade.

“Acceleration [of development] in the second part of the decade will be dedicated to full-electric vehicles, with the vision of a fourth model in the future,” Lamborghini said in a statement. “Once again, technological innovation in this phase will be oriented towards ensuring remarkable performance, and positioning the new product at the top of its segment.”

The statement didn’t give any more details about when we’d see the fourth car, or what form it might take. Given the automaker’s supercar DNA, a Lotus Evija-style EV hypercar might sound like the obvious choice, but we don’t think that’s likely to happen, and the image of a covered-up car pictured behind Winklemann in a video announcing Lamborghini’s plans showed a low slung GT. When we interviewed Winklemann’s predecessor, Stefano Domenicali, back in December 2019 he had this to say about a possible fourth model line:

“We wouldn’t do a smaller SUV – it would be a problem of cannibalization. We are not a premium brand, we are a super sports brand and we need to stay at the top.”

“I believe there is a chance for a fourth model, a 2+2 GT car – that’s a segment where we are not present but some other competitors are. That’s the only extension I can see making sense.”

Lamborghini showed the Asterion, a hybrid GT, in 2014

When asked if it would be a two-door or four-door car, Domeicali said: “That’s not decided, but I think a four-door is for the SUV, being a super sports car, the fourth model should be two doors.”

Knowing how Volkswagen likes to share resources across the group, and how phenomenally successful the Urus SUV has been for Lamborghini, it’s entirely possible that the J1 platform, the foundation for the Porsche Taycan and Audi e-tron GT, could form the basis of a new GT. But whatever form the new car takes, Winkelmann assures us it’ll still look and feel like a Lamborghini.

“Lamborghini’s electrification plan is a newly plotted course, necessary in the context of a radically changing world, where we want to make our contribution by continuing to reduce environmental impact,” he said. “Lamborghini has always been synonymous with preeminent technological expertise in building engines boasting extraordinary performance. This commitment will continue as an absolute priority of our innovation trajectory.”