Lamborghini CEO Stephan Winkelmann claims that the corporate is on a path marked by 4 issues: sustainability, digitalization, urbanization, and geopolitics. For the carmaker that has supplied a lot visible gas for car-obsessed youngsters the world over this previous 60 years, that’s fairly the high-speed lane change.

Then once more, the world that the all-new Revuelto lands in is nearly unrecognizable from the one the rakish Lamborghini 350 GT lit up again when the ’60s had been beginning to pendulate. Watching legacy carmakers pivot towards electrification isn’t at all times probably the most edifying spectacle, and Lamborghini’s first totally electrical automotive and fourth mannequin line gained’t arrive till later within the decade. Which makes the Revuelto a transitional step between the outrageous inside combustion that Lamborghini is finest identified for and the brand new automotive world order. Is that sufficient?

It needs to be. The Revuelto is a plug-in hybrid, nevertheless it repurposes the know-how in a way befitting this extrovert Italian sports-car maker, an organization whose annual turnover handed the €2 billion mark final yr for the primary time. In reality, Lamborghini says the Revuelto is an HPEV, for “high performance electrified vehicle,” a semantic sleight of hand designed to distance it from the hybrid norm. Performance is up by 30 %, emissions lowered by the identical quantity. But this explicit hybrid is devoted to increasing the automotive’s dynamic bandwidth as a lot as it’s tidying up its emissions or reframing a V-12 hypercar in a extra socially acceptable method.

Unrecognizable Hybrid 

The Revuelto is an enchanting machine with a extremely advanced nervous system. “Everything started with the V-12,” Lamborghini’s chief technical officer Rouven Mohr tells WIRED. “We wanted a hybrid system that actually increases the perception of the V-12, preserves its identity. The hybrid is there to support you, to enable you to go faster, and most of all to improve the handling. You will not recognize that it’s a hybrid. On the move, it feels like a much faster, naturally aspirated V-12, and it will feel like a car that’s 150 kilograms lighter because of the torque vectoring. It feels so agile and precise.”

At its coronary heart sits a naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V-12 aided by three electrical motors, two of that are mounted on the entrance axle, the third built-in into the all-new eight-speed dual-clutch transmission. The e-motor on the ’field additionally acts because the starter motor and a generator. Various revisions assist the ICE to an influence output of 814 brake horsepower at 9,250 rpm: It has been turned 180 levels within the engine bay in comparison with the outgoing Aventador to accommodate the gearbox and e-motor, and at 218 kilograms weighs 17 lower than earlier than. 

The central tunnel now homes a 3.8-kWh lithium-ion battery pack, which consists of 108 water-cooled pouch cells. To provide you with some concept how small this pack is, the automotive will be totally charged in simply half-hour on a 7-kW energy provide, however the battery pack is extra prone to be replenished beneath regenerative braking. The old-guard motoring world could not but be prepared for the sight of a Lamborghini hypercar connected to an electrical umbilical wire, whereas EV evangelists could properly really feel that is too timid a conversion.

The electrical motors on the entrance axle are oil-cooled axial flux models. Mohr and his group selected these as a result of they’re extra compact than radial flux ones and have a better energy and torque density. Each motor produces 110 kW and weighs 18.5 kilograms. Although the Revuelto has an electrical vary of about eight miles and will be pushed silently in Città mode, Lamborghini is evident that the tech exists primarily to intensify the automotive’s efficiency and high-speed dynamics. Together with the third e-motor above the gearbox, the Revuelto’s complete energy output is an attention-grabbing 1,001 bhp. Top velocity is 217 mph; 0-to-62 takes simply 2.5 seconds. There’s no phrase but on emissions or gas consumption.

An “Accessible” Lamborghini

The Revuelto is the most recent in a protracted line of intimidating mid-engined Lamborghini V-12s, vehicles that encourage awe and respect in equal measure. But the brand new automotive, Mohr says, is extra approachable and accessible. It’s true the hybridization presents quite a few potentialities to encourage and embolden the motive force: There at the moment are 13 separate drive modes; Recharge, Hybrid, and Performance are new, and in EV-only Città mode most energy is restricted to 180 bhp. 

Corsa mode serves up the complete 1,000-plus bhp, the e-axle primed for optimum torque vectoring and all-wheel drive. There’s an lively rear axle, too. The Revuelto guarantees to be extra agile because the tempo will increase and an excellent deal friendlier than its predecessors on the restrict. Lamborghini has resisted calling it a “drift” mode, however in Sport mode, with the steadiness management dialed again, the brand new automotive will apparently indulge the extra competent driver in delirious slides.