For the last few years, Lamborghini has been in a quandary: What to do about an electric vehicle? Among the supercar brands, Lamborghini has always stood out as favoring drama over lap times. And while electric motors and their instant torque can make a car accelerate very quickly indeed, other than the G-forces, it happens with such little fuss. Working out how to imbue an EV with enough “wow” factor to wear the famous bull badge has proved so difficult that the company has thrown in the towel in favor of developing more plug-in hybrids.
As part of Volkswagen Group, Lamborghini has access to the EV platforms used by fellow VW Group brands Audi and Porsche, so it’s not a question of access to technology. Rather, the company just doesn’t think it can sell the cars. As Tim Stevens found out for Ars last year, in this rarefied end of the car market, the customers just aren’t interested in EVs. People paying six or even seven figures for a supercar, especially a Lamborghini, are not exercising restraint, and they don’t want the car to do that, either.
Speaking to the Sunday Times this weekend, Lamborghini CEO Stephan Winkelmann revealed that the Lanzador, an electric SUV under development for the past few years, was canceled in late 2025. “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 told the paper.
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.
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 drive in those areas 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 Revuelto and the brand-new PHEV Temerario, the replacement for the Huracán.
Lamborghini sent Ars a statement saying that after “extensive analysis and ongoing dialogue with dealers and customers, it became clear that the pace of adoption of pure BEV vehicles has slowed considerably, particularly within the luxury super sports segment, where demand remains very limited.
“In light of these considerations, the product strategy has been refined,” Lamborghini told Ars, adding that, while it’s ready technologically for an EV, “market readiness within the segment is not yet aligned with this transition.”
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