On the need for carmakers to strike a balance between touch and tactility, Mohr believes there is no definitive right or wrong answer. “Some dedicated and precise haptic devices can make for a luxury feeling,” he says, before adding that the sort of haptics found inside a smartphone or under the trackpad of a MacBook Pro could work in an automotive application. Regardless, Lamborghini still has several years to nail the details.
Hybrid Countach Cabin
Photograph: Lamborghini
For now, the Lanzador concept has a pair of digital displays set into the dashboard which flip upward when the car is switched on—a nod to the pop-up headlights of the Lamborghini Countach, apparently. Lambo’s seminal supercar also inspired the glass roof of the concept, where horizontal rails echo the groove into which the Countach’s periscope-style rear mirror is housed.
Naturally, this being a concept car, door mirrors are replaced by cameras feeding live video to displays installed beneath the A-pillars. Their position isn’t particularly intuitive, and the pillars will surely become wider on the production car to meet crash safety requirements.
The size, shape, and position of the driver display feels about right, but the identically-sized and symmetrically-installed passenger display seems too small and too far away to be practical. It’s safe to suspect the concept cabin’s symmetry will be sacrificed for improved ergonomics before the Lanzador goes into production.
That said, Lamborghini has clearly put effort into making the interior feel believable. This isn’t a flight of fancy with a steering wheel that disappears into the dashboard, ready for a fully-autonomous future that may never arrive. It is, instead, evidence of Lamborghini taking a considered approach to concept design—an honest demonstration of what its first EV will look like.
Electric Lamborghini Sound
But how will it sound? Lamborghini isn’t yet ready to tackle the thorny subject of electric supercar sound, or precisely how its EVs will deliver the sort of emotion its V10 and V12 engines serve up without even trying. This is a brand so attached to the histrionics of internal combustion that drivers tasked with ferrying journalists and executives around during Monterey Car Week were told to always have the exhausts of their Urus SUVs in the loudest setting. Passengers must hear the pops and crackles as they’re whisked along the highway, they were told. Even Lamborghini’s own media briefing was interrupted by the sound of a supercar being driven enthusiastically nearby.
How the electric Lanzador achieves this isn’t yet clear, but Lamborghini confirms it is working on it, using driving simulators. Mohr says: “This is for sure a big challenge for us, I have to admit. We don’t want to do something completely decoupled from the driving experience, because then it’s very artificial. And for sure we are investigating using some frequencies [produced by the car’s electric motors], but not imitating a pure combustion sound.”