Lamborghini is not resting on its laurels. It will expand the Urus SUV in very divergent paths toward the future. One path will be racing, which will happen in 2020. The other isn’t surprising, but it shows how Lambo sees the future.

The 2020 Lamborghini Super Trofeo World Final is happening in Misano, Italy, at the end of October. Maurizio Reggiani, head of research and development for Lambo told Autoblog an updated Urus ST-X is in the works. He says this improved ST-X will make its debut at the Final. “There will be a demo race where we’ll present the format,” he said.

Future Super Trofeo races will now take in the Urus

Lambo has been involved in racing for years, so this comes as no surprise. It has held its Super Trofeo as a one-make series that goes around the world to include Europe, Asia, South, and North America. The winner is proclaimed Lamborghini World Champion. 

On a much more practical level, the other path Lambo is going is with a plug-in hybrid variant Urus. A separate team is developing this based on the Urus platform that is already engineered for electrification. Both the Porsche Cayenne and Bentley Bentayga are based on the same platform, and have hybrid power options.

The future is also electric for the Urus

So Lambo’s take on the shared platform is to differentiate the Urus from the others, and still keep it Lamborghini. “The most important part will be to define in what way a Lamborghini must use this electric energy, and in what way we can be different from the other users of this platform,” Reggiani said. 

He also said that the driving mode chosen by the driver will affect how the Urus electricity is utilized by the plug-in hybrid system. “We have seven different driving modes in the Urus and what will be important is that every driving mode uses electric power in a different way,” he says. Reggiani suggested that a boost-oriented mode could be utilized for maximum performance while a conservative mode could harness more electric energy for fuel economy.

The hybrid system in the Urus will be different from the Aventador

Other related news is that the gasoline-electric system that is going into the Aventador won’t be used in the Urus. Reggiani says that doing a hybrid supercar is far different and more challenging than putting a hybrid system into an SUV. He says that because of weight and packaging concerns it’s more difficult. He adds that going all-electric would be even more so. The technology is not able to do it properly right now he says.

“When you drive a super-sport car you want to have the freedom to do what you want,” he says. Freedom can mean going on the track for a day and running the car lap after lap. Today it’s clear that the battery technology isn’t able to provide this.” McLaren seems to be saying the same thing. Porsche, on the other hand, is showing by example that may not be the case, with the evidence being the Taycan.