Lamborghini is the Latest Automaker to Pull the Plug on Luxury EVs

I ask if Winkelmann can explain why luxury EVs are failing so badly when lower price points in the sector are doing so well. “First of all, there is no need to buy a car like Lamborghini. Then, for sure, there is the experience with electric cars on purchase price, resale value, and residual value, and also in terms of technology.”

Here Winkelmann is referring to the eye-watering drops in value some high-end EVs are experiencing, with brands like Porsche losing up to half the car’s value in just a year. Meanwhile, other marques had lux EVs that lost more than $600 each day.

“Then there is the fact that technology, in the eyes of our customers, is going to be obsolete in 10 years from now,” says Winkelmann, “because there’s a lot of new tech. This is the idea of the majority of our customers, and the experience they have had with electric cars, even in different segments, and charging times.”

Winkelmann says he does not know if fast-charging and high-capacity solid-state battery technology will be developed in time for the brand’s new deadline of 2029, however.

The announcement is another reminder that Ferrari, already irrevocably committed to launching its first full EV, the Luce, later this year, is yet another luxury automaker that has chosen (or been forced) to dramatically scale back its EV plans. Lamborghini’s addition to the ranks of high-end marques pulling the plug on full EVs potentially doesn’t bode well for the Luce.

However, Daniele Ministeri, senior consultant at automotive analysts JATO, says that this need not spell disaster for the Italian brand’s first electric car. “Ferrari has already faced criticism in the past for certain product decisions, most notably for introducing a SUV, the Purosangue,” he says. “However, two years after its launch, the Purosangue has proven to be a commercial and brand success, quickly becoming one of Ferrari’s best‑selling models. Whether the new Luce will generate the same level of enthusiasm remains difficult to predict. Still, Ferrari has successfully drawn strong attention to the project.”

Winkelmann says Lamborghini’s decision to delay full electrification has nothing to do with Ferrari’s or any other competitor brand’s backpedaling. “We know what our neighbors are doing. But we have our own strategy, and it’s good to have a comparison—but we need to be responsible for what we do. This is the right decision for us.”

Munoz says that although Europe is not the largest market for EVs, it is still the second after China, which gives an idea of how difficult it has been for these cars to gain traction. “When it is about supercars, the transition is even more difficult,” he says, “because they are usually associated to big petrol engines with a loud sound. Ferrari’s upcoming EV will face tough times to compete against its own ICE siblings. What Ferrari can’t do is to repeat the mistakes of Porsche with the Taycan. It started very solid, but soon it lost appeal to the other ICE models of the brand.”