Good news. M'colleagues on HMS
Autocar
report that Lamborghini will retain naturally aspirated engines, rather than switching to turbocharged ones.
Well, on its sports cars, at least. We'll overlook the Urus SUV for now, a vehicle which, um, serves the purpose for which it was created.
But when the Huracan and Aventador - the staple supercars in Lamborghini's range - are replaced, they'll get hybrid electric assistance rather than turbochargers to boost their performance and, more pertinently, efficiency.
There are things about turbochargers that are great, obviously: they add specific power and can enhance efficiency.
But they add weight, they add complexity, they add a need for additional cooling capacity, which adds more weight again. And beyond that, they alter the way an engine responds: they want time to spool, they tend to rev lower, and they change the sheer character of the way torque is delivered, which, along with their muffling qualities, also affects the noise engines make.
To a lesser or greater extent, all of that is true on all of today's turbocharged cars.
The Ferrari 488 Pista's 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8 is terrific; Ferrari talks about 'zero turbo lag' and limiting torque slightly in lower gears at lower revs, to keep a naturally-aspirated feel: you get more as revs rise.
It is, for me, the best turbocharged engine in production. (Followed by, cripes, probably AMG's, Porsche's, McLaren's, then the rest.) In third gear, at 2,000rpm, Ferrari says the Pista's V8 wants 0.8 seconds from full throttle before it is delivering its peak output. The naturally aspirated 458 Italia, meanwhile, wanted 0.6.
Which is not, admittedly, much difference. But it's one you feel: not when planting your foot to the floor and waiting the extra 0.2 seconds for the last ounce of torque (at which point, in the turbo, there'll be much, much more of it, too). No, you feel it more subtly, in general driving: in a razor sharp naturally aspirated car like a Porsche 911 GT3 RS or a 458 Italia or a Huracan, little throttle pushes just beget a quicker transient response.
Hence Lamborghini's naturally-aspirated V10 (Huracan) and V12 (Aventador) engines are currently two of the finest in production, and why Lamborghini would like it to stay that way, by adding electric assistance rather than blowers.
Hybrids have their downsides too, clearly. Batteries and motors are not weight-free, either. An issue McLaren is also struggling with for its mooted electric hypercar, is that battery research is being directed towards increasing energy-density, which is good for providing range, rather than power-density, which is good for providing... power.
So there's work to be done, though that is good news in itself, because if it's done for these tow manufacturers, it's available to others.
Lamborghini's technical director, Maurizio Reggiani, told me that the day the company didn't make a V12 any more would be a day he didn't work at Lamborghini any more. And I like that Lamborghini is sticking to this principle, even though it is a part of the ever more homogenous Volkswagen group. Now, about the next-generation 911 GT3...
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