2006 Lamborghini Gallardo on 2040-cars

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Audi CEO says brand's EVs are almost as profitable as its other cars

After, oh, a hundred years or so of building vehicles primarily powered by internal combustion engines, automakers around the world have been and still are pumping billions of dollars into the development of electric vehicle technology. Everything from platforms and batteries to motors and the software to control it all requires untold hours of development, and that takes time and money. Fortunately, it's not going to take long for that massive investment to start paying off, at least according to Audi CEO Markus Duesmann, who told Reuters in an interview that "The point where we earn as much money with electric cars as with combustion engine cars is now, or ... next year, 2023. They are very even now, the prices." As a brand, Audi contributed more than a quarter of overall profit for the massive Volkswagen Group, which has such powerhouse brands as Volkswagen and Porsche among others. Under the Audi umbrella are Lamborghini, Bentley and Ducati, and it seems those high-end branches aren't going anywhere, at least for now. "These brands ... are very valuable very profitable brands, where we can even expand the synergy level in the future," Duesmann said in the interview. "There are no plans whatsoever to get rid of them." Despite the overall profitability of the brand, the ongoing global chip crisis is causing headaches. "We had a very strong first half in 2021. We do expect a much weaker second half," said Duesmann, who added, "We really have trouble." In fact, so serious is the trouble that the brand is forced into "a day-to-day troubleshooting process" to limit the chip-shortage damage. The good news for the automaker is that Audi has been able to boost its profit margin from 8% prior to the pandemic in 2019 to 10.7% in the first half of 2021. The bad news is that various chip shortages aren't expected to get a whole lot better over the rest of the year. Related video:

Lamborghini teasing 50th Anniversary model in video?

This new year is going to mark a lot of anniversaries in the automotive world, including the 60th year of the Chevrolet Corvette and 50 years since the introduction of the Porsche 911 and the Lamborghini brand. We already know Chevy is celebrating with the all-new C7 Corvette, and we've heard rumblings that Lamborghini might be planning a new model of its own.
Tucked in at the end of a great video highlighting the first 50 years of Lamborghini, there's a quick glance of a shadowy car with Gallardo-like headlights. There isn't much to go off of in this shot, but we do see that the front fenders are more squared-off than any other current model, meaning that it could very well be the 2014 replacement for the Gallardo.
Scroll down to watch Lamborghini's history (and possibly future) wrapped up quite nicely in a 72-second video.

2015 Lamborghini Hurac?n LP 610-4

It was probably the best headache I've ever had in my life. A spicy combination of Lamborghini's superlative new 2015 Huracán LP 610-4, fast-as-you-can-drive laps of the tricky Ascari race circuit, 80 kilometers of the Ronda Road and a healthy dose of southern Spanish sun had left me with a bit of a pounder. That cocktail of speed and noise had also granted me one of the best days of driving in my life.
As an encore to Gallardo, the single most successful Lamborghini model in history, and following on the heels of the most profitable era the company has ever known, the stakes for this Huracán could hardly be higher. What's more, considering that stablemate Avendator hasn't exactly come in for universal praise (despite its unquestionable commercial success), I flew to Spain with a small pit of doubt in my generally buoyant heart. Could Huracán possibly let me down?
It could, maybe. But it didn't. This is a car that most assuredly lives up to the hype, and is fully worthy of wearing the crown won for it by the outgoing Gallardo. Sorry for the spoiler.