Lamborghini’s Revuelto Is Its First Hybrid

Lamborghini boss Stephan Winkelmann claims the company is on a path shaped by four things: sustainability, digitization, urbanization and geopolitics. It’s quite a high-speed lane change for the automaker that’s provided so much visual fuel for car-obsessed teenagers around the world for the last 60 years.

On the other hand, the world in which the all-new Revuelto lands is almost unrecognizable from that which the sleek Lamborghini 350 GT illuminated back when the ’60s began to commute. It’s not always the most uplifting spectacle to watch older automakers turn to electrification, and Lamborghini’s first all-electric car and fourth model line won’t arrive until later this decade. That makes the Revuelto a transitional step between the outrageous internal combustion engine that Lamborghini is best known for and the new automotive world order. Is that enough?

It should be. The Revuelto is a plug-in hybrid, but implements the technology to match the extroverted Italian sports car manufacturer, whose annual sales last year exceeded the two billion euro mark for the first time. In fact, Lamborghini says the Revuelto is an HPEV, for “High Performance Electric Vehicle,” a semantic sleight of hand aimed at distancing it from the hybrid norm. Performance increases by 30 percent and emissions by the same amount. But this particular hybrid is designed to expand the car’s dynamic range as much as it cleans up its emissions or redesigns a V-12 hypercar in a more socially acceptable way.

Unrecognizable hybrid

The Revuelto is a fascinating machine with a highly complex nervous system. “It all started with the V-12,” Lamborghini Chief Technical Officer Rouven Mohr told WIRED. “We wanted a hybrid system that would actually increase the perception of the V-12 and preserve its identity. The hybrid should support you, drive faster and, above all, improve handling. You won’t realize it’s a hybrid. On the road it feels like a much faster naturally aspirated V-12, and it will feel like a car that’s 150 kilograms lighter because of torque vectoring. It feels so agile and precise.”

At its heart is a naturally aspirated 6.5-litre V12 supported by three electric motors, two of which are mounted on the front axle and the third integrated into the all-new eight-speed dual-clutch transmission. The electric motor on the box also functions as a starter and generator. Various revisions help the ICE to achieve an output of 814 hp at 9,250 rpm: Compared to the outgoing Aventador, it has been rotated 180 degrees in the engine compartment to accommodate the gearbox and electric motor, and at 218 kilograms it weighs 17 kilograms less than before.

The center tunnel now houses a 3.8 kWh lithium-ion battery pack consisting of 108 water-cooled pouch cells. To give you an idea of ​​how small this pack is, the car can be fully charged in just 30 minutes with a 7kW power supply, but the battery pack is more likely to be replenished under regenerative braking. The old-guard car world may not be ready for the sight of a Lamborghini hypercar strapped to an electric umbilical cord, while EV evangelists may think that’s too timid a switch.

The electric motors on the front axle are oil-cooled, axial-flow units. Mohr and his team chose these because they are more compact than radial flux motors and have a higher power and torque density. Each motor has an output of 110 kW and weighs 18.5 kilograms. Although the Revuelto has an electric range of about eight miles and can be driven in silently Citta Mode, Lamborghini is aware that the technology is primarily there to increase the car’s performance and high-speed dynamics. Together with the third electric motor above the gearbox, the total output of the Revuelto amounts to an impressive 1,001 hp. Top speed is 217 miles per hour; 0-62 takes only 2.5 seconds. There is still no information on emissions and consumption.

A “walk-in” Lamborghini

The Revuelto is the latest in a long line of intimidating mid-engined Lamborghini V-12 V-12s, cars that inspire awe and respect in equal measure. But the new car, says Mohr, is more approachable and accessible. True, hybridization offers numerous opportunities to encourage and encourage the driver: there are now 13 separate driving modes; Recharge, Hybrid and Performance are new, and in EV-only Città mode, maximum power is limited to 180 hp.

The Corsa mode provides the full 1,000 hp, the e-axle is prepared for maximum torque vectoring and all-wheel drive. There is also an active rear axle. The Revuelto promises to become more agile with increasing speed and a fair bit friendlier than its predecessors at the limit. Lamborghini has resisted calling it a “drift” mode, but in Sport mode with stability control dialed back, the new car will apparently indulge the more competent driver in insane slides.