Luxury Italian carmaker Lamborghini is devising its first fully electric model as the company also reaches the final lap for combustion engines powering its coveted models.
Lamborghini plans to introduce the car by the end of the decade, chief executive Stephan Winkelmann said.
The manufacturer has been profiting from the high performance of its Urus, which blends traditional aspects of a super sports car with the typical functionality of an SUV.
“Over the past few years Lamborghini has stabilised and consolidated thanks to Urus,’ he told Italian news agency Ansa.
“With the hybridisation of the current range, we keep the promise of making our cars even more performing and reducing CO2 by over 50 per cent. The fourth Lamborghini model will arrive around 2028, joining the Urus, Huracan and Aventador.”
He said the electric car would still pack plenty power and will remain a recognisable Lamborghini.
“Ours will be a car with high performance but with the peculiarities of the electric. We will certainly have to get used to this novelty but we are sure to succeed".
Lamborghini – which is part of the Volkswagen Group – and other players in the high-performance sports car market, including Ferrari, Aston Martin Lagonda and McLaren, are wrestling with how to shift their ranges to battery power without losing the high performance that supports their premium pricing.
Lamborghini's first fully electric model will be a four-seater coupe sport utility, with a nod to the tradition of grand tourers, a company spokeswoman said.
Mr Winkelmann reiterated Lamborghini's aim to make its entire line-up, including the Huracan and Aventador sports cars and the Urus SUV, hybrid within two or three years.
This timetable, however, puts Lamborghini behind rival Ferrari, which has already launched three hybrid models and promised to have a battery-electric car operating by 2025.
Mr Winkelmann said sales volume for this year was expected to be in line with those of last year, when the brand shipped 8,405 cars, and that orders were already covering a sizeable part of their planned production.
Lamborghini has allocated 1.5 billion euros ($1.7bn) for the transition to plug-in hybrids.
