We talk with Lamborghini's CEO about an electrified future

It would be a cliché to say that exotic car manufacturer Lamborghini is running on all cylinders, but the description is apt for their current situation. Last year, the automaker sold more than 10,000 vehicles for the first time and for the first nine months of 2024, they delivered 8,411 vehicles with a 20 percent revenue increase to €2.43 billion ($2.60 billion). Operating profitability reportedly grew 9.8 percent during that same period to €678 million.

Those numbers are a stark contrast to those of its parent company, Volkswagen Group, which is trying to cut $4.2 billion (€4 billion) in costs as European sales slump. This has forced the brand's chief executive officer to announce layoffs, pay cuts, and plant closures in Germany, where the company is facing a series of strikes from a workforce not used to such actions.

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By contrast, Lamborghini is seeing nothing but smooth sailing with a focused exotic sports car and SUV lineup that increasingly offers hybrid drivelines across its model range.

“We were never in the race to be the first ones going plug-in hybrid,” said Stephan Winkelmann, CEO of Lamborghini. “We always said this type of technology is not only about innovation, it's also about coming when the market is ready.”

Clearing the air on hybrid technology

While Winkelmann admits that reducing CO2 emissions is important, it’s not the primary driver behind the introduction of hybrid technology to Lamborghini. Buyers can currently choose from the 1,001-horsepower Revuelto, 907-horsepower Temerario, or 788-horsepower Urus SE, showing that power goes hand-in-hand with innovation.

“We always said that the battery technology must help us to perform better than before,” he said. “At the end of the day, it's the performance. We have to be the ones that are leading because otherwise there is no reason to do it. Just to reduce emissions and not having an additional power impact on the car and performance will be a losing game.”

So far, the company says its hybrids are meeting sales expectations, with the Urus SE being sold out through the end of next year. Those same hybrid vehicles produced by Lamborghini are also being increasingly customized at the factory through the company’s Ad Personam customization program.

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Customization is increasingly important to the Italian marque

As if to emphasize the capabilities of that program, Lamborghini revealed the first Urus SE hybrid to be customized by Ad Personam at a private event during Miami Art Week. 

Created at Lamborghini's Centro Stile design center under the direction of Lamborghini’s Ad Personam customization team, the Urus SE’s vibrant, bold color scheme uniquely captures the energy of South Beach while unmistakably manifesting the automaker’s performance spirit.

“Let's say the things that make a Lamborghini a Lamborghini are more and more influenced by individualization. It's our customers wishing to have something nobody else has in terms of individualization,” Winkelmann said. “For us, being very limited in volumes, this is an extra margin on top of each and every car. This is something that is very important for the future of the company.”

Hybridization of any kind is a tough sell for Lamborghini

While customization is an easy sell, Winkelmann admits that there are customers for whom an electric motor of any kind in a Lamborghini is a non-starter. Going forward, that makes fully electrifying a sports car with the raging bull badge even more of a challenge. After all, an internal combustion car is a controlled explosion, meaning there's movement and there's noise. There's none of that with electrification.

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“This is the challenge, and we are working on it,” Winkelmann admits, adding that the company is working on finding a solution. “This is one of the things which we have to fulfill to be successful with the electric cars. But on the other hand, we want to keep hybrid as long as possible. This depends also on legislators, and we see the opportunity to have synthetic fuels, which will help us to keep the internal combustion engines alive after the middle of the next decade.”

There might even come a time when Lamborghini won’t legally be allowed to build internal combustion engines, but that's something the company is prepared for.

“It's clear that we have to be prepared to face this. If you ask me, what are we going to do? We will continue to build cars," Winkelmann said.

Avoiding mistakes is what Lamborghini has done best

While Winkelmann and his staff have been wise on the timing of their models' electrification, they’ve been even wiser to not join other automakers’ blind leaps into China. That move, which once seemed like a smart bet, is now souring for those who counted on continued profits from the Chinese market.

“They are having a problem because they are overexposed. We never did it, unlike other brands. We always look into the size of the market, and then we decide what to do.”

In the case of Chinese automakers, their concentration on electric cars isn’t a threat to Lamborghini, according to Winkelmann. “I don't see that they are going to invade our territory, because we are one of the strongholds,” he said.

“The Chinese market worldwide is the biggest one, but not in terms of luxury cars. There is a bubble that is bursting, and this is what happened in China. But at the end of the day, the size of the luxury market was always smaller than a lot of car manufacturers were putting into the market.”

Still, Lamborghini’s CEO knows the challenges on the road ahead.

“It's electrification. It's the acceptance on the one hand, it's the legislators on the other. And on our side, it’s how fast we are able to deliver something which is as emotional as our cars today.”

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