Lamborghini Design Boss Mitja Borkert Reveals the Secrets Behind the Carmaker’s First EV

Lamborghini head of design Mitja Borkert was having a very good Friday.

“I’m the most happy person to be here,” the energetic German said on August 18, beaming under the California sun.

Granted, there were plenty of happy people at The Quail, a Motorsports Gathering. As one of the biggest events of Monterey Car Week — second only to the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in spectacle and scale — it’s packed with eye candy for the automotive fan, a place where the champagne and caviar flow and well-to-do car lovers who paid $1,000 a ticket rub elbows with the bigwigs of the world’s fanciest car companies as they all gawk at multi-million-dollar dream machines from yesterday, today and tomorrow.

But Borkert was the only one there who’d been in charge of penning the Lamborghini Lanzador.

The steel blue electric car concept, revealed at The Quail, was inarguably a showstopper. Not only does it provide a preview of the Raging Bull’s first EV, but it also shows how the brand plans to do so by creating a whole new type of vehicle. Part crossover, part sports car, the high-riding, two-door, four-seat Lanzador is unlike anything else on the road.

Lamborghini

“I have a page in my design presentation called ‘expect the unexpected,’” Borkert said while standing beside the car. “We [had] to create something different.”

Showing off the wide rear hatch and the capacious cargo bay — the car is designed to fit a short board inside the vehicle with plenty of room to spare — he said he was inspired by transporting mountain bikes in his Honda CRX as a younger man.

“It’s [for] fitting all the lifestyle that you have,” he said. The design, in his words, is about “respecting the mission of the car” — just as the Huracan’s mission of hauling ass and attacking curves is clear from its design, so is the Lanzador’s adventure-anywhere-at-high-speed modus operandi meant to be apparent from its wedge-shaped silhouette.

Of course, Borkert’s old hatchback was far from the only inspiration. The Lanzador, in spite of its nontraditional segment, takes cues from the company’s past and present models. The proportions are derived from the brand’s latest sports cars — the Aventador, Revuelto and Huracan. The hexagonal tail lamps are an homage to the iconic Countach; the greenhouse is inspired by the Diablo and Murcielago.

Lamborghini

With the Lanzador, Lamborghini is further staking its claim as purveyor of performance vehicles that can astound on roads paved and unpaved alike. The Urus SUV that arrived in 2017 effectively created the super-sport-SUV category now populated with the likes of the Ferrari Purosangue, Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT and Aston Martin DBX 707, while the Huracan Sterrato that debuted last year brings grippy tires and added ground clearance to the V10 supercar. (To be fair, there is an earlier precedent; the LM002 “Rambo Lambo” of the 1980s was as wild as an off-roader could be in its day.)

But the Lanzador is clearly a breed apart. For starters, it makes more power than the Urus and Huracan combined. Dual electric motors — one for the front wheels, one for the back — spit out a claimed 1,341 horsepower. Its interior, meant to emulate a spaceship cockpit, is features a host of sustainable materials to prove the company’s seriousness about going green after decades of vending cars with gas-guzzling V12s. And while Lamborghini didn’t reveal how far it’s expected to go on a charge, the brand stated the car — which it dubbed an “Ultra GT” — will use “a new generation high performance battery, which also ensures a long range.”

Lamborghini

The company has time to iron out the details, however. The production car, according to Lamborghini, won’t hit the streets until 2028 — five full years after the concept’s debut. That puts it on a slower path to its debutante ball than most carmakers’ first EVs, but that’s clearly not hurting sales; with 5,341 vehicles sold in the first half of 2023, Lambo is pacing to have its best year yet even without an EV in its arsenal.

No wonder Borkert is smiling.

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