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As VW electrifies, it questions the role of Lamborghini, Bugatti, Ducati

FRANKFURT — Volkswagen needs to change to stay relevant in the electric and digital vehicle era and will announce "important steps" to that end before the close of the year, Chief Executive Herbert Diess said on Wednesday. "Volkswagen needs to change: From a collection of valuable brands and fascinating combustion-engine products that thrill customers with superb engineering — to a digital company that reliably operates millions of mobility devices worldwide," Diess told shareholders at the company's virtual general meeting. Vehicles need to stay in contact with customers, offer new services and comfort functions on a weekly or even daily basis, he said. "We will take further important steps to set the course for this in the rest of 2020," Diess said. Senior executives told Reuters the company is reviewing what role its high-performance brands Lamborghini, Bugatti and Ducati will play as the company increasingly focuses on electric, digital and autonomous vehicles. Volkswagen, which also owns VW, Audi, Porsche, Seat and Skoda, is looking at whether it has the resources to accelerate development of electric platforms for smaller brands at a time it is investing billions to transform its more mainstream cars. Asked whether Ducati, which is known for making noisy combustion-engined motorbikes, has an electric future, Markus Duesmann, who oversees research and development for the group, said: "It will not take long until we see an electric Ducati." Whether Ducati, which is a medium-sized premium motorbike brand, would offer an electric variant, depends on whether a bike could offer range comparable to a combustion-engined variant, Duesmann said. Advances are being made in battery technology which could make this possible, he added. Separately Frank Witter, the company's chief financial officer, in response to a question about whether a sale of Lamborghini is planned, said Volkswagen does not comment on speculation about potential divestments. Lamborghini's Chief Executive Stefano Domenicali this week announced his departure from the sports car maker to take on a new job as president of Formula One. VW needs cash Volkswagen is reviewing the future of these three high-performance brands as part of broader quest for more economies of scale as it shifts to mass producing electric cars, senior executives told Reuters.

Lamborghini's Huracan quicker than its costlier Aventador?

Car and Driver threw a leg over the Lamborghini Huracán and rode it hard all around the 16-turn Circuito Internationale Nardò, next to the banked oval that's brought us many a top-speed video. On the way to discovering the bull calf sweetly eclipses the Gallardo it replaces, CD also discovered that - comparing their own tests - it is faster from zero to 60 miles per hour than its paterfamilias, the Aventador.
Now, we should all know that 0-60 tests are an imprecise discipline, but CD's Eric Tingwall torched the sprint in the Huracán in 2.5 seconds - yes, faster than a whole lot of other very expensive super-coupes. In the magazine's last instrumented test of the Aventador Aaron Robinson ran 3.0 seconds, and for more Aventador perspective we can compare Motor Trend's 2.8 seconds, also scored at Nardo, Road & Track at 2.7 seconds and Lamborghini's estimated 0-62 mph time of 2.9 seconds. Any way you chop that up, 2.5 seconds beats it. A bit of a shock, then: Lamborghini lists the Huracán's 0-62 mph time as 3.2 seconds.
We'll get a more precise idea of the discrepancy when more tests come online, but for the moment - and in this one respect - we've got the $241,945, 602-horsepower Huracán showing its angry backside to the $397,500, 691-hp Aventador. Even if it remains true, though, we're not sure it matters; in a figurative case of Predator versus Alien, it's arguable that the only way to be wrong is not to own one.

Lamborghini has already pre-sold 700 Huracans

It's barely been two months since Lamborghini revealed the new Huracan. The latest ten-cylinder Raging Bull hasn't even had its public debut yet, scheduled to take place next month at the Geneva Motor Show (the same show where McLaren will reveal its new 650S and Ferrari the revised California T). But the Bolognese automaker has already managed to take a whopping 700 orders for the new supercar.
Not that the customers are waving their checkbooks sight unseen, mind you. Over the course of the past month, Lamborghini has been carting pre-production Huracans around the world for VIP clients, 700 of whom have put down their deposits.
To put that number into perspective, consider that in 2012 (the last full year of production), the factory in Sant'Agata built just over 1,200 Gallardos. Assuming Huracan production continues at the same pace, that means Lamborghini already has over half a year's worth of production spoken for. So if you want to get yours anytime in the coming year, you'd better get your deposit in lickety-split.