Lamborghini Drops $1.8B to Enter Electric Market

Come 2024, new Lamborghinis won’t have that familiar roar.

The Italian sports car maker is spending $1.8 billion to develop plug-in hybrid versions of all its current models and produce fully electric cars by the latter half of this decade.

It is not clear at this moment what that means for the company’s racing pursuits, which include the GT World Challenge and the Lamborghini Super Trofeo series, a competition that exclusively features the automaker’s Huracán Super Trofeo Evo model cars.

Lamborghini, owned by Volkswagen, follows Porsche, another VW luxury brand, in offering electric models. Porsche entered the all-electric Formula E series in 2019, joining VW-brand Audi, which has participated since the inaugural 2014-2015 season. 

Many other luxury brands are making the electric pivot in racing and consumer cars.

• Longtime Formula 1 competitor McLaren is entering Formula E in the 2022-2023 season. All new McLaren models will be hybrids by 2026, with fully electric vehicles coming by the end of the decade. 
• Ferrari, another competitor in both F1, with potential plans to enter Formula E, will offer electric cars by 2025.
• Daimler-owned Mercedes was ahead of the game, rolling out its first fully electric model in 2018. Mercedes has competed in Formula E since 2020.

The reason for the gear shift is clear: EV sales are surging, growing 81% year-over-year in Q1 2021, as more automakers develop models to compete with market dominator Tesla.