Lamborghini Debuts Its First Hybrid Super-SUV
4 min
Lamborghini CEO Stephan Winkelmann has made it clear the company, which makes some of the fastest cars in the world, would not speed into the era of electrification.
“Our first steps in that (electrification) direction will be plug-in hybrids throughout the lineup,” he said in a 2022 interview with Penta. “This is all very easily welcomed at Lamborghini. The equations are easy. We always promise more performance than the generation before for all our cars, and we will do so while maintaining sustainability. By 2025, we will be able to cut our overall emissions by 50% with all of the hybrid models added.”
Proving Lamborghini and Winkelmann are as good as their collective word, the time of watts and volts arrived in Bologna, Italy, with the debut of the 2025 Lamborghini Urus SE. The first hybrid super-SUV from the proud Italian firm, which starts at $275,000 marries the familiar internal combustion specs of its growling engines with battery power looking not so much to save the planet as to propel vehicles across it with more alacrity.
The Urus SE is the first hybrid plug-in version of Lamborghini’s SUV, and it’s aimed to outperform its all-internal combustion rivals, such as the Aston Martin DBX707 and the Bentley Bentayga. The PHEV (Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle) Urus SE relies on an 800 CV hybrid powertrain, surpassing any previous Lamborghini SUV model in torque and power numbers.
Courtesy of Lamborghini
The machine’s twin-turbo 4.0-litre V-8 engine is reengineered and partnered with an electric powertrain to produce 620 CV. For the uninitiated, CV is the abbreviation of Chevaux-Vapeur and is similar to horsepower. Usually, HP converts to just a little less than CV—at least allowing the automotive enthusiasts from the U.S. and Europe to get a traditional sense of vehicle power for gas-powered or hybrid vehicles without needing a conversion calculator.
To make a long engineering story as quick as the Urus SE, if you add together the internal contrition power plant and the e-motor, the final output is 800 CV. The result is a Lamborghini that cuts its emissions by 80% without sacrificing performance, comfort, or driving excitement.
The thinking process on when and how to release this plug-in hybrid began before the company’s 2021 pledge to cut CO2 emissions, says Stefano Cossalter, the Urus model line director.
“This plan gave momentum to a profound and constant research of opportunities and challenges involved in the transition to electrification,” Cossalter says. “The plan started in 2023 with the launch of the Revuelto [sold out into 2026], our first HPEV (high performance electrified vehicle), and continues with the launch of the hybrid version of our Super SUV Urus SE.”
Cossalter lays out that the slow and steady march to electrification will continue next year with the release of the Temerario, described by Lamborghini as the successor to the popular Huracan and “the first super sports car in the history of the … brand to be equipped with a V-8 twin-turbo engine paired with three electric motors.” Then, the automaker will look to the horizon for its introduction of the Lanzador, the company’s first BEV (battery electric vehicle) in 2028.
The hybrid version offers improved performance over the 100% gas Urus. A magnet synchronous electric motor located inside the SE’s eight-speed automatic transmission tied into the four-wheel-drive system can boost the V-8 engine, offering additional acceleration. Meanwhile, that motor can provide enough power to transform the Urus SE into a totally electric vehicle with a range of about 35 miles in EV mode.
With the new drive system noted, Lamborghini’s engineers could turn to performance specs. They built in a new, centrally located longitudinal electric torque vectoring system with an electro-hydraulic multi-plate clutch. That’s a lot of fancy tech talk to say the vehicle can throw power and grip back and forth between the front and rear axles wherever the onboard system senses it’s needed. A new electronic limited-slip differential on the rear axle helps give the Urus SE oversteering when needed. The end result is an SUV that packs the feel of a Huracan on the road.
That supercar feel in an SUV is the experience Lamborghini refuses to abandon in the Urus SE, Cossalter says.
“We didn’t come to compromises in the hybridisation process,” he says. “We wanted the Urus SE to preserve the DNA of the original project and enhance the experience for the driver. For those reasons, we decided not to downsize. We kept a V-8 engine with its strong character and voice, and then added some spice to the dynamic behavior by changing the all-wheel-drive architecture. The result is we have more power, more torque, more speed, more fun.”
As for external styling on the Urus, Lamborghini takes after its competition at Aston Martin or Ferrari by trying to make an SUV that looks as little like an SUV as possible. The profile is lowered, and the lines sweeping and tapering from nose to tail, as though Lambo’s in-house designers want to hide the size and functionality of an SUV inside the shape of the familiar Lamborghini supercars of the past.
However, driving the Urus does not feel much like a traditional Lamborghini supercar simply because the driving position is higher and more upright compared to, say, an Avantador that puts the driver’s backside close to pavement. Regardless of where one sits, the acceleration, noise, and tight handling lives in a Urus as happily as it does in any other Lambo.
As its first volume consumer step into the hybrid world, the Urus SE tells Italian supercar enthusiasts to keep the faith.
“The Urus SE points to the future with electrification while keeping its heritage intact,” Cossalter says.
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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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