Despite adopting the SUV platform, Lamborghini will continue to retain its sports car manufacturing brand. As its CEO says, it’s all about the emotion attached to the quality of the brand.
Lamborghini Chief Executive, Stefano Domenicali, has disclosed that once its rolls out its new SUV, the luxury auto manufacturer expects to double its production to 7,000 vehicles year by 2019.
Despite manufacturing SUVs Lamborghini will retain its focus in making sports cars. In fact, the company wants to cap the yearly production of its supercars to just 3,500. As for the SUVs, the production cap is expected to be significantly higher, depending on demand.
Incidentally, Lamborghini is a unit of Audi, which is a part of the Volkswagen Group.
“We will push like hell to” sell 3,500 or more of the SUVs, said Domenicali in an interview. Interest in the SUVs are supposedly high in the United States. “It’s a big game-changer,” said Domenicali.
Earlier this year, Domenicali was named as Lamborghini’s CEO. He now plans to boost the company’s dealership network from 132 to 160. With the company’s largest market being in the US, 30% of its dealers are located there.
In 2015, the company sold a record of 3,245 vehicles worldwide, including just over 1,000 in the United States.
“We will not, clearly, give up on our DNA, which is to produce super sportcars,” said Domenicali.
As part of an investment growth, which was announced last year, Lamborghini plans to double the size of its Sant’Agata Bolognese plant in Italy and plans to invest hundreds of millions of euros as well as add 500 employees to its roster.
Significantly, of late many luxury car manufacturers, including VW’s Porsche, have entered the highly profitable SUV market.
Lamborghini plans of rolling out a plug-in hybrid electric version of the SUV by 2020. It could also add a zero emission vehicle to its portfolio by then.
As per Domenicali, SUVs could act as a future platform for the company’s upcoming autonomous vehicles, without hurting its sports vehicle brand.
“If you buy a Lamborghini you want to drive … We are talking about emotions,” he said, adding that steering wheels won’t go away in Lamborghinis, “In life, technology has to be part of the emotion.”
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