It’s not hyperbole to say that the Urus has transformed Lamborghini’s fortunes. The SUV was the right car at the right time for Lamborghini, and to make sure it continues to be, the model is allegedly about to undergo a major shakeup that will see Lamborghini introduce a PHEV powertrain, and drop all other engine options.
That’s according to comments made by Winkelmann to Autocar, which reports that a facelifted, PHEV-only Urus will be launched in 2024 in the first part of a two-stage electrification plan. The SUV will then be reinvented as a pure EV five years later, launching a year after the firm’s first fully electric vehicle, a still-unnamed crossover-style GT.
It was no secret that Lamborghini was working on a plug-in Urus. We’ve seen spy shots of such vehicles, and Lamborghini has already adopted plug-in power for its Aventador successor, the Revuelto, and will revisit the tech for next year’s Huracan replacement. But we imagined that the PHEV powertrain would be introduced as an option, not made compulsory.
The good news is that the Urus PHEV will still feature a V8, and electrical assistance will only make it more powerful than the 641 hp (650 PS) V8 in the current SUV. The powertrain will probably be a version of the one in the Porsche Cayenne Turbo S E-Hybrid, but uprated to almost 800 hp (811 PS), though of course, the Urus’s already chunky curb weight will get even bigger.
Related: Lamborghini Urus PHEV To Finally Launch Next Year With An Estimated 800 HP
Winkelmann didn’t sound hugely positive about the future of combustion engines, claiming that emissions regulations made it costly to build compliant ICE cars and that even if regions didn’t introduce outright bans, higher taxes would drive buyers away from combustion models towards EVs.
“I strongly believe that after 2035, legislation will be so high for ICEs that it will be almost impossible for the ones with high displacement like ours to be compliant,” he said.
The CEO also claimed that the development of synthetic fuels was going to be more useful for keeping current cars running than giving automakers the freedom to create new combustion models. But at the same time, Winkelmann said the company had some breathing space before having to decide whether to go all-in on pure electric power for the successors to the Revuelto and 2024’s Huracan replacement, which won’t arrive until years after the 2028 electric GT.
Winkelmann described the planned fourth model as having more ground clearance than a regular GT and great visibility, but still instantly recognizable as a Lamborghini. He also claimed it would be powered by “high-performance batteries that nobody else has.”
