Progress can suck.
I don’t want to go for a metaverse digital beer with mates, nor for my children to have online AI girlfriends.
I also don’t want my Lamborghini to be electrified. I’m pro-EV, pro plug-in hybrid and all that greenness, but if it’s all the same, can Italian exotica please retain free-breathing V10s and V12s like God intended?
But as we learn from a young age, I want doesn’t get.
We’re adrift in fantasy land believing this all-new Lamborghini – the sublime-looking Temerario – would be anything but a hybridised effort. Emissions regulations grow ever tighter, and our plug-in Raging Bull is the inevitable result.
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READ MORE: Aussies don’t want EVs: Lamborghini backs future for high-performance hybrids.
READ MORE: New 2025 Lamborghini Temerario gets advanced triple e-motor V8.
The naturally-aspirated and emotion-oozing V10 found in the retiring Huracan supercar is no more, meaning all three current Lamborghini offerings – Revuelto, Urus and Temerario – are plug-in hybrids.
If, in 1988, you’d have told ten-year-old me that a Lamborghini supercar could be driven 10km in complete, electrified silence, I’d snigger and ignore you.
I’d point to my Lamborghini Countach 5000 Quattrovalvole bedroom wall poster (black body, gold rims, pastel colours sunset) and explain a 5.2-litre V12 plus five-speed manual is the forever drivetrain.
Electric motors are for milk floats and vacuums.
Senna, Prost, Mansell … Curry
Yet here I am, in 2025, eclipsing 300km/h in an electrified Lambo at Estoril’s Grand Prix circuit. You could tell ten-year-old me that thanks to electric motors (and a twin-turbo petrol V8), I’d be keeping up with Senna, Prost and Mansell’s F1 cars at the 1988 Portuguese Grand Prix. That would get my attention.
It’s amazing, and wholly predictable, how supercars like the $614,000 Temerario have embraced electrification to realise mind-bending acceleration and top speeds.
In a sublime case of regulatory unintended consequences, Lamborghini and its ilk gain the green credits by producing plug-in hybrids, then wholeheartedly use the battery power for extra grunt and speed. The eco side? Nah. Not really the point, mate.
Think Ferrari 296 GTB, Aston Martin Valhalla, McLaren Artura or any number of Mercedes-AMG weapons: PHEVs with laughably low electric-only range, but kW and Nm numbers in the stratosphere.
Our only Temerario taste was on the race track, rather than public roads. Even so, hitting an ‘EV’ button on the switch-heavy steering wheel meant I could experience silent Lambo progress in the pitlane.
It feels novel, but a gagged Lamborghini’s much like alcohol-free gin. Nobody requests them on their deathbed.
Into Corsa (race) mode and the bi-turbo bent-eight rumbles to life. As expected, this force-fed 4.0L V8 doesn’t hit in the feels like the Huracan’s pure V10. There’s an eager exhaust note, but it doesn’t seem like Pavarotti was put in charge of induction noise.
What this new V8 hybrid can do, however, is rev to 10,000rpm. And up at this nosebleed redline there’s reams more aural excitement to go with performance that blurs both scenery and reality.
Numbers are mega. The boosted V8 on its own offers 588kW and 730Nm, then three electric motors bump the total system output to 676kW.
The shark-nosed Temerario with welcome Countach design nods will find 343km/h with a long enough road, taking just 2.7 seconds to knock off the opening 100km/h and 7.1 seconds the double-ton.
Ludicrous, really, for something weighing a not insignificant 1690kg dry – this weight gain (300kg over a rear-drive Huracan) is a necessary evil of hybridisation and all-wheel-drive.
OK, it’s not a V10 but there are good bits, really
So it’s a bit lardy and not as glorious on the eardrums as the old V10 Huracan, but electrification brings plenty of compensatory goodness.
There’s a single electric motor integrated in the mid-mounted V8’s housing, and it aids the instant and fantastically linear acceleration while the two turbos spool to life. Lamborghini says this e-motor “fills any turbo lag, no matter how small, at any speed, delivering 300Nm of torque.” Feels that way too.
The case for electrification is most dramatically felt using launch control. Traction is physics-defying – you’re out like a bullet – and the powertrain’s pull, the force, the relentlessness in building speed is mega. Shout out to the eight-speed dual clutch ‘box too, shifting cogs rapidly at the 10k redline.
On the front axle is a brace of 110kW oil-cooled e-motors, weighing 15.5kg each. Lambo says the combined torque of this duo is up to 2150Nm, although as we’ve previously seen, e-motors and torque numbers are all about how its reported and calculated.
This front e-axle handles torque vectoring and traction in a deeply impressive manner. There’s Schumacher-like precision to turn-in, helping it feel agile for such a heavy thing in tight bends, then feeling confidence-inspiringly stable in fast corners. Really, 200km/h+ cornering speeds are rarely so effortless this side of an aero-heavy race car.
At Estoril’s long back straight, braking from 300km/h is mainly handled by 410mm (f) and 390 (r) carbon ceramic rotors, then aided by the front e-axle and rear electric motor, while recharging the battery.
This is a little 3.8kWh unit, hence the 10km-if-you’re-lucky pure EV range. It charges up rapidly on the fly, using the V8 engine in a specific regen-mode to hurry things along when required. Plugging in, it’ll handle up to 7kW charging, so the battery can be full again in this manner in half an hour.
The technology and engineering are as impressive as they are complex, so perhaps this Lambo’s greatest trick is how relatively simple it is to extract its performance and chassis talents.
Okay, we could only try it on a track, but I’ve not driven anything else where I could hop in the driver’s cockpit and within two laps on an unfamiliar circuit already be semi-comfortable at 300km/h.
It’s no soulless computer, either. Flick to Sport mode and this ’Rario puts on its rear-wheel-drive suit, enabling and permitting grin-bringing oversteer with no fear. Get greedy on the throttle and there are billions of electrical equations working with the hardware to tidy up over-eager pilot inputs and keep you out of the tyre walls.
The Corsa (race) mode sharpens everything up for lap record chasing, calling the front e-axle to work harder and keep things neutral, pointy and way tidier than this driver deserved.
If you have to ask the price you can’t afford it
This Temerario may be some $150,000 over the retiring Huracan as Lamborghini’s baby supercar, but the progress and tech go a long way to justifying it. And be in no doubt, the $613,855 before on-roads looks unlikely to ostracise the typical Australian Lamborghini shopper. Most aren’t doing it tough, and have more than one Bull in the garage.
For track fans, a lightweight Alleggerita Package adds $85,000 – think carbon interior, body and underside bits, larger rear wing, and much improved aero efficiency and downforce. Carbon wheels add another $48,650, if feeling flush.
I have very fond memories of playing with V10 Lamborghini Huracans, with the engine’s soulful, tingling tones proving key to the desirability formula.
This electrified Temerario can’t reach those aural feels – despite that 10,000rpm redline – but good grief those three e-motors help this Lamborghini achieve scarcely believable things on a race track. Acceleration, speed, cornering clout, the lot.
The purist in me wants electrification to stay a long way from anything Lamborghini badged, but reality bites.
And when this Temerario can deliver so phenomenally at such speeds, I’m not actually minding those bites one bit.
Score: 4.5/5.0
2025 Lamborghini Temerario specifications
Price: $613,855 plus on-roads
Basics: PHEV, 2 seats, 2 doors, supercar, e-AWD
EV Range: 10km (Lamborghini estimate)
Battery capacity: 3.8kWh
Energy consumption: To be homologated
ICE: 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8, 588kW/730Nm
|E-motors: 1 mid-mount, axial-flux, 110kW, 2 front, axial-flux, oil-cooled, 220kW
AC charging: 7kW, Type 2 plug
DC charging: NA
0-100km/h: 2.7 seconds
