Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Cars
  3. News

An autonomous Lamborghini? No way, says the brand’s R&D boss

Ronan Glon
By

autonomous Lamborghini
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Most automakers are racing to bring self-driving cars to the masses. No one quite agrees on when they’ll begin merging into the mainstream, but one thing is certain: Lamborghini wants no part of the industry’s autonomous arms race.

“If you buy a Lamborghini, you buy it to have fun and enjoy the driving,” affirmed Maurizio Reggiani, the head of the Raging Bull’s research and development department, in an interview with Digital Trends on the sidelines of the Frankfurt Auto Show. “If we’re talking real autonomous driving, I think we will be the last brand to offer it,” he added.

Recommended Videos

We were admittedly not surprised by his comments. What’s the point of owning an Aventador or a Huracan, which are super-high-performance machines not usually driven on a daily basis, just to sit back and read a book as it drives itself? An autonomous Lamborghini super-sports car isn’t even under consideration, let alone in the works. The story line changes a little when it comes to the Urus, the brand-new SUV Lamborghini will introduce before the end of the year.

Related

“We will have adaptive cruise control, we will have a camera, we will have lane-keeping systems. Every feature available in a premium car will be available in the Urus, but nothing that comes close to real autonomous driving,” Reggiani revealed. That’s on top of several driving modes optimized for different surfaces like asphalt, snow, and sand.

Developing autonomous technology for its cars has been ruled out, and for good reasons, but Lamborghini is leaving the door open to in-car connectivity.

“We’ll also have connectivity in the Urus. For us, connectivity must be a kind of customer experience in Lamborghini. We want to bring buyers a dedicated system, not something that is already available on the market,” Reggiani explained. He didn’t provide more details, but we won’t have to wait long to find out which type of software the first Lamborghini off-roader of the 21st century will come with.

The R&D boss hinted we shouldn’t expect to find the same level of connectivity in Lamborghini’s super-sports cars. Modern bells and whistles like television-sized touchscreens, gesture-controlled software, and hidden Easter eggs ruthlessly compete for the driver’s attention and take away from the overall driving experience.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Ronan Glon
Ronan Glon
Contributor
Ronan Glon is an American automotive and tech journalist based in southern France. As a long-time contributor to Digital…
This startup says it will be 3D-printing entire houses within a year
mighty buildings 3d print house 5

Is 3D printing the future of housebuilding? It certainly will be if new startup Mighty Buildings, which launched from stealth mode this week, has its way. The company builds houses rapidly using a giant 3D printer and proprietary 3D printing material that, unlike concrete, hardens almost immediately thanks to a UV light curing process. This technique allows it to create houses with 95% fewer labor hours and significantly less waste than traditional construction techniques, which could be a game-changer in the construction field.

“The 3D printing, robotic post-processing, and the ability to automate steps like the pouring of insulation means that Mighty Buildings will be able to automate up to 80% of the construction process,” Sam Ruben, chief sustainability officer and co-founder of the company, told Digital Trends.

Read more
Hyundai launching all-electric brand, with three models on the way
Hyundai announces Ioniq EV brand

Hyundai is launching a new brand dedicated to electric cars. As with the automaker's Genesis luxury brand, the name comes from an existing model -- the Ioniq hatchback. What was once a single model will now be an entire brand, with three electric cars scheduled to launch over the next four years.

Two of the three Ioniq models will be based on previous Hyundai concept cars. The first, the Ioniq 5, is due in 2021 and will be based on the Hyundai 45 concept. Unveiled at the 2019 Frankfurt Motor Show, the 45 is a retro-looking hatchback inspired by the Hyundai Pony — the first car developed in-house by the automaker. The concept debuted on the 45th anniversary of the Pony's unveiling, hence the name.

Read more
Lamborghini is putting race cars in your living room. Hop in and drive one
Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO The Real Race

Car races are postponed, auto shows are canceled, and driving is often restricted. It's not a stretch to say that 2020 hasn't been kind to car enthusiasts. To help satisfy that driving itch, Lamborghini is bringing wheel-to-wheel racing action to your living room and putting you in the driver's seat.

The luxury carmaker has announced a competitive, simulator-based racing series named The Real Race that will run from May to September 2020. The winners of these virtual races will have the opportunity to prove their mettle on a real track.
Years in the making
"Our decision to enter e-sports goes back to [2019], even before the outbreak of COVID-19 and the subsequent lockdowns," Katia Bassi, the company's head of marketing and communications, told Digital Trends. Lamborghini may not be rooted in competition, but it intensified its racing efforts in the 2010s and reaped the rewards. Its Huracàn took first in class in the grueling Daytona 24 race for three years in a row. Going digital is the logical next step.

Read more