An autonomous Lamborghini? No way, says the brand’s R&D boss

By Ronan Glon Published December 22, 2017

autonomous Lamborghini — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Most automakers are racing to bring self-driving cars to the masses. No one quite agrees on when they’ll begin merging into the mainstream, but one thing is certain: Lamborghini wants no part of the industry’s autonomous arms race.

“If you buy a Lamborghini, you buy it to have fun and enjoy the driving,” affirmed Maurizio Reggiani, the head of the Raging Bull’s research and development department, in an interview with Digital Trends on the sidelines of the Frankfurt Auto Show. “If we’re talking real autonomous driving, I think we will be the last brand to offer it,” he added.

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We were admittedly not surprised by his comments. What’s the point of owning an Aventador or a Huracan, which are super-high-performance machines not usually driven on a daily basis, just to sit back and read a book as it drives itself? An autonomous Lamborghini super-sports car isn’t even under consideration, let alone in the works. The story line changes a little when it comes to the Urus, the brand-new SUV Lamborghini will introduce before the end of the year.

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“We will have adaptive cruise control, we will have a camera, we will have lane-keeping systems. Every feature available in a premium car will be available in the Urus, but nothing that comes close to real autonomous driving,” Reggiani revealed. That’s on top of several driving modes optimized for different surfaces like asphalt, snow, and sand.

Developing autonomous technology for its cars has been ruled out, and for good reasons, but Lamborghini is leaving the door open to in-car connectivity.

“We’ll also have connectivity in the Urus. For us, connectivity must be a kind of customer experience in Lamborghini. We want to bring buyers a dedicated system, not something that is already available on the market,” Reggiani explained. He didn’t provide more details, but we won’t have to wait long to find out which type of software the first Lamborghini off-roader of the 21st century will come with.

The R&D boss hinted we shouldn’t expect to find the same level of connectivity in Lamborghini’s super-sports cars. Modern bells and whistles like television-sized touchscreens, gesture-controlled software, and hidden Easter eggs ruthlessly compete for the driver’s attention and take away from the overall driving experience.

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Ronan Glon is an American automotive and tech journalist based in southern France. As a long-time contributor to Digital…

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