We all know that if you want a mad Italian exotic, the place to go is Sant’Agata Bolognese, where the company with the raging bull badge is based. Lamborghini’s big USP is how incredible its cars feel, not just to the driver, but also anyone watching from the sidelines and listening to the V12 engine roar. An electric powertrain doesn’t quite evoke the same feeling, and in a recent conversation with CarBuzz, the man at the helm of Lamborghini’s electric car division explained why the Lanzador project was scrapped as an EV.
A Lamborghini Is Meant To Give You Goosebumps
Lamborghini Fenomeno Roadster in natural light.Lamborghini
Stefano Cossalter knows better than anyone that Lamborghini stands out with its mad approach to design. As the head of the Urus product line, he was able to transform what is otherwise a family hauler into a track weapon, and is at the helm of the company’s transition into electric power. He is also responsible for the Lanzador project, which will now be released as a hybrid grand tourer after there was very little interest in a fully electric vehicle.
“As an engineer, I’m in love with electric cars and what you can do in terms of performance,” he explains during the Goodwood Festival of Speed. “But what they are lacking is emotion. Checking with our customers, they said they want to get goosebumps when they get in. I want them to go to bed thinking about how much fun they had on their daily drive.”
“Yeah, the car would be fast. Bloody fast. But it wasn’t going to be emotional. With electric cars, you’re getting an emotion which is fantastic acceleration, but then it’s gone.”
– Stefano Cossalter, Lamborghini Urus Product Line Director
This has been one of the biggest sticking points for electric cars, and companies like Hyundai have emulated gearshifts to create more involvement and emotion. While we’re unsure if Lamborghini would have offered this in an EV, choosing to go with a plug-in hybrid powertrain is a safer choice for a customer base that values emotional connection above everything else.
An Electric Motor Has Its Limitations, Lamborghini Says
Lamborghini Urus SE PerformanteLamborghini
While purists reject the idea of any electrons flowing through the powertrain, there are some advantages to this tech, like outright speed and flexibility. The problem, Cossalter says, comes in the form of longevity and reliability. “We believe that the current level of technology is not good enough for repeatability of performance,” he says. “There are cars doing great performance one or two times, but that’s it. Then you have to cool the car down for half an hour.”
“We have a big competitive advantage as we know how to deliver performance and emotion. Software is where we have some crazy ideas to give customers some emotion.”
That’s something that is not acceptable for a sports car, Lamborghini believes. “The performance has to be there, always. We want to go to the limit of the tire, rather than the limit of the car,” Cossalter says. These issues can be fixed with time, and the company is working on its own upgrades to battery chemistry, but the technology isn’t ripe enough yet to be battered around a race track for hours.
CarBuzz Insight — Why This Matters
Lamborghini Lanzador sideLamborghini
At a time when it feels like governments are choosing what cars companies should build, this stubbornness from Lamborghini is a breath of fresh air. Yes, they could’ve made an EV and sold a few units, but the brand identity would show cracks as it tries to recreate emotion digitally. Ferrari has tried desperately (to varying degrees of success) to convince people that the Luce belongs in the product lineup, but there are still some that don’t think it deserves the badge.
Lamborghini knows its place in the market. It has ideas about how it wants to improve EV performance, and it’s confident that it can launch an exciting car powered by electrons in the future, just not now. Brand identity is more important now than ever in a super saturated market. “Competition is very good as it pushes you to the limit,” Cossalter explains. “We have some ideas [about electric cars], so we’re not going to give up on that.”
