Driving Lamborghini’s $600,000 Ultra-Powerful Plug-In Hybrid
4 min
No longer are supercars powered strictly by muscular V8 and V12 engines, producing a mighty roar as they burn gallons of gas at a ferocious rate. Today’s entries can have hybrid, plug-in hybrid, or pure electric drive. But they’re still awesomely fast, with neck-snapping acceleration.
The new Lamborghini Revuelto, a novel form of plug-in hybrid, puts out an eye-opening 1,001 horsepower (with 739 pound-feet of torque) via a combination of three electric motors (two on the front axle) and a mid-mounted—and exposed to the elements—V12 that, by itself, produces 825 horsepower. It manages to produce more power with some beneficial weight loss. That’s coupled to an eight-speed dual-clutch automatic (with manual paddles) and a 3.8-kilowatt-hour battery pack (with LG cells) that gives the Revuelto five or six miles of all-electric travel.
Hybrid drive in the Revuelto is not so much to achieve better fuel economy, though that’s one result, but is primarily a way of boosting power output as needed. It also yields all-wheel drive. Sales started early this year, and Lamborghini plans to produce about 1,500 to 1,600 Revueltos annually (with the supply limited by the company’s ability to produce its carbon-fiber structure). The inventory is sold out until 2026. As is true of many supercar companies, the SUV is the biggest seller—Lamborghini produces about 5,000 Urus SUV models each year.
Lamborghini photo
The list price of the 2024 Revuelto is US$604,363. As tested, with the biggest option being US$13,100 for the special grayish paint, the bottom line was US$681,258. Lamborghini handed over the Revuelto keys at the 140-acre Wildflower Farms resort in Gardiner, N.Y., for a 90-minute drive around the scenic Hudson Valley. Although the car is capable of a stated 217 miles per hour in the right context, it was still huge fun to drive it at much more moderate speeds on the curvy local roads.
Matteo Ortenzi, product line director for the Revuelto, explained that having two motors up front increases the opportunity for effective torque vectoring, which improves handling by delivering power to the individual wheels as needed. “The feel is of a lighter and more powerful car,” Ortenzi says. “We didn’t build the Revuelto just to say we did a hybrid.”
As in other hybrids, the Revuelto returns power to the battery on deceleration, a process called “regenerative” braking or in Ortenzi’s words, “using negative torque.” After the 90-minute drive, the Revuelto still had a 90% charge. Lamborghini doesn’t think owners will need to plug it in often, though it provides a charging cord. The charge portal is actually under the front hood, a “frunk” where the car has its limited luggage space.
Jim Motavalli photo
Entering through the vertically opening scissor doors requires some agility, but soon becomes second nature. Leg room is good, and the bolstered seats hold the driver in firmly—a good thing considering the speeds and g-forces the car can achieve. The gauges are brightly digital, with huge single-digit numbers for the gear selected. There’s an 8.4-inch touchscreen mounted centrally, and a third 12.3-inch unit for the passenger. The start-stop button is under a military-grade protective cover.
The drive started in EV mode, yielding a quiet getaway that didn’t disturb resort guests. Small dials on the dash control the driving modes. Città (city) is for city electric, Strada (street) for comfortable cruising, Sport (self-explanatory), and Corsa (race, for total performance).
All the modes were sampled, but Strada was a nice balance of performance and driving pleasure. Sometimes using paddles seems not worth the bother, but in the Revuelto the big flippers provided instant gear changes and a nice feeling of control. Slowing down, the transmission acts on its own to downshift. Everything works together: the tight steering (with rear-wheel steering, too), the firm but not harsh suspension, and the hugely reassuring carbon-ceramic brakes. The engine barks out a very Italian song. It’s quite a driver’s car, though not one that can take the family to Disneyland.
Jim Motavalli photo
In the classic muscle car, huge V8 engines were stuffed under the hoods of regular passenger vehicles, sometimes without much thought as to how the powerful result would get around corners or stop. The Revuelto, despite that fearsome 1,001 horsepower, seems to have been fully engineered to handle what it puts on the ground. It can reach 62 miles per hour in 2.5 seconds, with the driver in firm control.
Plug-in hybrids like the Revuelto are a big step toward battery EVs. Lamborghini showed the Lanzador, a fully electric concept car, during Monterey Car Week in 2023. Exactly when a production model will appear is unclear. “It’s not when, but how,” Ortenzi says. “The world doesn’t need just another electric car; it needs an electric Lamborghini.”
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From making unpopular decisions to learning when to listen, leaders from five businesses reveal what nobody prepared them for — and how running a company has challenged their expectations.
Technology and semiconductor shares fell sharply as investors questioned the debt financing the AI infrastructure boom and confronted higher rates and Chinese competition.
Elon Musk is exploring a potential merger between Tesla and SpaceX, a deal that could reshape the future of AI, robotics, autonomous vehicles and space technology. With a combined valuation potentially reaching $3.5 trillion, the move could bring Musk’s vision of an interconnected technology ecosystem closer to reality, although a deal remains uncertain.
5 min
Elon Musk has engineered ties between Tesla TSLA 3.41%increase; up pointing triangle and SpaceX SPCX 7.79%increase; up pointing triangle that are hard to break, and now he wants to fuse them together permanently.
Musk has run both Tesla and SpaceX concurrently over the past two decades, using a schedule that dictated which days he spent focused on each business.
The companies have often shared resources and personnel, signaling their close ties. Last year, SpaceX looked into creating a spacesuit for Tesla’s humanoid robot Optimus, a person familiar with the matter said. Tesla last week showed off its new Roadster, a vehicle featuring SpaceX rocket thrusters that it hopes to soon bring to market.
And in recent months, Musk has repositioned both companies by expanding beyond their core operations toward a shared mission centered on artificial intelligence.
The world’s richest man on Tuesday signaled his interest in tying up SpaceX and Tesla, marking what would be the biggest corporate merger of all time. Because he serves as chief executive of SpaceX and Tesla, Musk said committees of independent directors at both companies are evaluating a possible deal, adding that a transaction might not come to fruition.
The committees will likely evaluate, with lawyers and bankers, how each company would fare in a potential deal and how a deal might best be structured. They then present their conclusions to their respective boards, who typically vote on whether to proceed.
“It’s an odd Kabuki dance where two groups of people are talking and I can’t be in the conversation,” Musk told SpaceX investors on Tuesday in response to an analyst’s question about a potential deal.
For Musk, the merger supports his vision of a world full of autonomous cars, humanoid robots and weekly rocket launches, as well as the data centers and satellites required to keep the whole thing running.
Some investors and analysts said they expect a transaction would be structured as an all-stock deal, with SpaceX potentially paying a modest premium for Tesla shares.
SpaceX, which has a market value of about $2 trillion, said it is seeing sharp growth in revenue across its businesses, which include operating data centers, launching rockets and operating satellite networks such as the internet service Starlink. Tesla is valued at about $1.5 trillion and is expanding its operations beyond its automotive and energy business. Shares in both companies traded higher following the news Tuesday.
Musk’s substantial ownership stakes in both companies, along with voting control at SpaceX, has enabled him to set the deal in motion. Analysts and investors said the deal will probably face regulatory scrutiny internationally, though some see Musk’s close relationship with the Trump administration as an asset to getting approval.
Blurred lines
The companies haven’t said which directors are on the special committees evaluating a potential deal. Several SpaceX and Tesla board members have either personal or business ties to Musk. And like Musk, venture capitalist Ira Ehrenpreis sits on both boards.
In a filing this week, Tesla outlined millions of dollars in business agreements with SpaceX and its subsidiaries last year, including $143 million in car sales to SpaceX, $3.3 million in advertising that it bought on the social-media platform X and $430 million in revenue from the sale of Megapack batteries for SpaceX’s data centers.
The companies also split the cost of resources including the use of Musk’s SpaceX jet and the bill for his personal security, which he runs through a private company.
Employees at both companies routinely move between companies to work on special projects, and some executives have dual roles, including Charles Kuehmann, vice president of materials engineering at both SpaceX and Tesla, and Ashok Elluswamy, the vice president of AI software at Tesla who runs a joint venture with SpaceX called Digital Optimus.
Over the years, Musk has launched new startups within his empire, including brain-implant company Neuralink, underground-tunnel developer the Boring Company and xAI, the AI startup that merged with SpaceX in February.
It is that AI business that Musk thinks can serve a market worth tens of trillions of dollars, justifying the need for a merger.
The business case goes like this: Tesla is developing robotaxis and robots, which it calls “physical AI.” SpaceX is working on the back end of physical AI: the data-center capacity and internet connection required for those robotaxis and robots to operate continuously.
“I don’t see what the value of Tesla is if it’s not merged with SpaceX,” said investment adviser Ross Gerber, a former Tesla bull turned critic invested in both companies. “If they don’t merge, the brains of everything that runs Tesla is owned by another company.”
On top of it all, both companies face constraints on the supply chains they need to make this world a reality, particularly when it comes to chips. To address this, Musk earlier this year announced a joint venture between Tesla, SpaceX and Intel to design and manufacture chips in Texas. “The most epic chip-building exercise by far,” he has said.
Musk at the wheel
For Musk, a merger would also solve two problems: demands on his attention and his lack of control at Tesla.
Tesla for years was Musk’s only public company, a status that came with greater scrutiny. There, Musk reports to a public board, as well as individual investors who make up around 30% of Tesla’s voting power, according to FactSet.
The question of Musk’s attention became a particular focus for investors and the board in recent years after he acquired Twitter in 2022 and launched xAI in 2023, and again in 2025 as he spent time in Washington, D.C., running the Department of Government Efficiency in the early months of President Trump’s second term.
As Tesla’s car business suffered in 2025, Musk threatened to take his AI ambitions outside the company if he wasn’t granted 25% voting control. Last November, Tesla shareholders approved a new pay package for Musk, which created a path for him to vastly expand his stake.
As of Sept. 30, Musk owned a roughly 20% stake in Tesla, according to the company’s proxy filing.
The SpaceX IPO gave Musk a different path. When SpaceX went public in June, the deal’s structure enabled him to have more than 80% voting power at the company—so much that he can’t be fired and decisions can’t be made without his support.
If SpaceX acquires Tesla, he will likely stay in control.
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