Record Revenue, a V12 Farewell, and a Billion-Euro Bet on Batteries
By November 2022, Lamborghini could point to its best nine months ever in financial terms: 7,430 cars delivered between January and September, an 8% climb over the same window in 2021, paired with the permanent retirement of the pure V12 combustion engine. The final Aventador rolled off the Sant’Agata Bolognese production line in September, and in the same breath the company committed to hybridizing its entire model range by 2024. Peak commercial health and an irreversible technological pivot arrived simultaneously, which is what made this announcement something more than a routine quarterly earnings beat.
Turnover for the period reached €1.93 billion, up 30.1% year over year. Operating profit surged 68.5% to €570 million, pushing Return on Sales to 29.6%, a figure that would make most luxury goods conglomerates envious, let alone automakers. Lamborghini attributed the profitability spike to higher volumes, a richer product mix driven by increased customer customizations, and favorable exchange rates. CEO Stephan Winkelmann framed the numbers as a launchpad rather than a victory lap:
“These figures show just how strong Lamborghini is today. We have an order portfolio that already covers the first quarter of 2024, and this allows us to look thoughtfully ahead to the challenges facing us in the future, such as the first step towards hybridization from 2023.”
That order backlog stretching into early 2024 was the quiet headline inside the headline. It meant Lamborghini could invest aggressively in electrification without the existential anxiety that plagues lower-margin competitors. When your next 18 months of production is spoken for, the calculus on a multi-billion-euro powertrain overhaul shifts from speculative to strategic. Every section of this story traces the same thread: record profits bought the freedom to reinvent the powertrain, and the reinvention, in turn, generated even bigger records.
Where the Money Came From: Urus Dominance and Huracán Momentum
Breaking the sales figures down by model reveals the portfolio balance that underwrote the hybrid gamble. The Urus Super SUV posted a record 4,834 deliveries in the first nine months, a 7% increase and the highest nine-month total since the model debuted in 2018. The Huracán showed the strongest percentage growth at 11%, reaching 2,378 global deliveries and proving that a late-lifecycle sports car could still accelerate demand.
Geographic spread was equally robust. The USA remained the reference market with an 8% gain. Japan surged 26%, the UK climbed 20%, and Germany added 16%. Growth across all three macro regions (Americas, Asia Pacific, and EMEA) was proportionate, meaning Lamborghini was not leaning on a single geography to inflate its totals.
The practical significance for the hybrid transition is straightforward: the Urus was printing cash, the Huracán was sustaining a late-lifecycle sales surge, and neither model was cannibalizing the other. That financial cushion is what separates a smooth generational handover from the kind of chaotic, delayed product launches that have tripped up other marques. Lamborghini did not pivot out of desperation or regulatory panic. It pivoted because it could afford to do it properly.
The Lamborghini Urus Performante in Arancio Borealis is showcased on a pit lane with a man standing proudly beside it. Image: Automobili Lamborghini.
The Last Naturally Aspirated V12: What Lamborghini Left Behind
September 2022 marked the end of an unbroken lineage that stretched back decades. The final Aventador left the production line, and with it went the last pure, non-hybridized V12 Lamborghini would ever build. The company described the moment as emotional for the workers who had assembled the model since its 2011 debut, and that sentiment was not corporate theater. The Aventador defined an entire generation of ownership, from the original LP 700-4 through the SVJ and the Ultimae send-off.
Lamborghini treated 2022 as a deliberate celebration of the combustion era’s final chapter. New models introduced during the year included the Huracán Tecnica, the Urus S, and the Urus Performante, the latter of which claimed an SUV record at Pikes Peak. A teased all-terrain version of the Huracán, planned for unveiling at Art Basel Miami at year’s end, signaled that even the farewell tour would include something unexpected.
For the enthusiast community, the V12 farewell was bittersweet. The Aventador’s single-clutch automated manual, its theatrical exhaust note, and its occasionally terrifying rear-axle behavior were defining characteristics, not just spec-sheet entries. Losing the pure combustion V12 meant losing a specific kind of sensory experience. The question hanging over the entire hybrid strategy was whether Lamborghini could replace that visceral quality with something equally compelling, or whether electrification would sand the edges off.
A powerful Lamborghini engine is meticulously lowered into the chassis of a light blue car on the factory floor. Image: Automobili Lamborghini.
Charting the Hybrid Roadmap: Direzione Cor Tauri in Practice
Lamborghini’s electrification blueprint, known internally as Direzione Cor Tauri, called for every model in the range to gain some form of hybrid assistance by 2024. The 2022 financial results provided the war chest. One report indicates the company allocated over €1.5 billion across four years specifically for the hybrid transition, a figure that underscores the scale of the engineering overhaul required.
The successor to the Aventador was confirmed to retain a V12 engine paired with a hybrid powertrain. As CarBuzz reported in late 2022, prototype testing revealed the new flagship would ditch the Aventador’s single-clutch gearbox in favor of a dual-clutch transmission, a change that promised smoother shifts and faster acceleration without the old car’s occasionally brutal gear changes. Around the same time, CarBuzz also noted that Lamborghini filed a U.S. trademark application for the name “Revuelto” in November 2022, a strong signal that the successor’s identity was already locked in.
The strategic logic was straightforward, even if the engineering was anything but. Hybridization would allow Lamborghini to meet tightening global emissions standards while adding instant electric torque, improving low-speed drivability, and enabling short-range EV operation for city centers increasingly hostile to combustion engines. The company positioned this not as a compromise but as an enhancement: more power, more usability, more relevance, without abandoning the high-revving engines that define the brand’s character. Record profits made that framing credible. Without the financial runway, the same words would have sounded like wishful thinking.
A vibrant quartet of Lamborghini Huracán models lines up on the track, ready to unleash their power. Image: Automobili Lamborghini.
From 2022 Vision to 2025 Proof: The Hybrid Bet Pays Off
What makes Lamborghini’s 2022 announcement worth revisiting now is the receipts. Later reports confirm that the company delivered a record 10,747 vehicles globally in 2025, with hybrid models serving as the primary growth engine. The Revuelto V12 hybrid and the Urus SE plug-in hybrid SUV were central to that performance. Lamborghini claims it became the only luxury super sports car manufacturer to offer a fully hybridized model range, a distinction no rival can currently match.
The financial trajectory held. In the first half of 2025, Lamborghini recorded a Return on Sales of 26.6%, described as a record percentage among Volkswagen Group brands. While that figure sits slightly below the 29.6% nine-month RoS from 2022 (a period inflated by Aventador end-of-life pricing power and limited-edition premiums), sustaining margins above 26% during a full product-line transition is remarkable. Most automakers see profitability dip during generational changeovers. Lamborghini’s margins barely flinched, validating the thesis that record 2022 profits bought the breathing room to execute the switch without financial turbulence.
The Temerario, the twin-turbo V8 hybrid successor to the Huracán, adds another layer. Customer deliveries are scheduled to begin in January 2026, with the order book reportedly covering approximately 12 months already. That demand signal mirrors the Aventador-to-Revuelto handover pattern: buyers are not waiting to see whether hybrid Lamborghinis deliver on their promise. They are pre-ordering based on confidence in the brand’s execution so far.
Multiple Revuelto owners on enthusiast forums describe the hybrid system as transformative for daily usability, praising the dual-clutch transmission and improved fuel economy compared to the Aventador. The consensus among early adopters appears to be that the car gained refinement and torque without losing its essential drama. Sentiment around the Temerario is more divided, with some forum discussion questioning whether a twin-turbo V8 can replicate the naturally aspirated V10’s emotional signature. That debate will intensify once deliveries begin.
Competitive Context: Where Lamborghini Stands Against Ferrari and McLaren
Lamborghini’s claim to a fully hybridized lineup is a competitive weapon, not just a sustainability talking point. Ferrari offers hybrid models (the SF90 and 296 GTB among them), but its range still includes non-hybridized cars. McLaren’s Artura introduced hybrid technology to its core lineup, though the company’s turbulent financial history and ownership changes make its long-term electrification roadmap harder to predict. Lamborghini’s advantage is consistency of execution: the 2022 announcement laid out a clear timeline, and the company hit it.
The deeper competitive question is whether being first to full hybridization translates into lasting market share gains or simply sets a standard that rivals will eventually match. For now, the answer favors Lamborghini. Record deliveries in 2025, a sold-out Temerario, and margins that rival luxury goods houses suggest buyers are rewarding the strategy with their wallets.
There is a practical benefit for buyers, too. Lamborghini’s hybrid engineering is now in its second generation across two distinct platforms (V12 supercar and Super SUV), meaning early-adopter teething issues that plague first-generation hybrid systems from competitors are less likely. An owner taking delivery of a Temerario in 2026 benefits from lessons learned during Revuelto and Urus SE production, a maturity curve that matters when you are spending several hundred thousand dollars on a car. The 2022 financial cushion did not just fund the transition; it bought the time to get the engineering right before competitors caught up.
What the 2022 Pivot Tells Us About Lamborghini’s Next Moves
Lamborghini confirmed its interest in synthetic fuels as a longer-term strategy to keep combustion engines viable beyond current regulatory horizons, positioning the brand to defend its engine-centric identity even as electrification deepens. Whether a fourth phase of Direzione Cor Tauri eventually produces a fully electric Lamborghini remains an open question the company has not answered definitively.
What the 2022 financial results and the subsequent three years of execution demonstrate is a brand that understood something its competitors were slower to grasp: the transition to hybrid powertrains did not need to be a defensive retreat. Funded by record profits and an overflowing order book, Lamborghini turned an industry-wide regulatory obligation into a product advantage. The Aventador’s V12 is gone, but the company it helped build is selling more cars, making more money, and generating more buyer demand than at any point in its six-decade history.
For anyone who placed a deposit on a Revuelto or a Temerario, that is the context that matters. The car in your future garage exists because Lamborghini spent 2022 turning record profits into a blueprint, then actually followed through.
A vibrant collection of Lamborghini supercars, including Huracán and Aventador models, are dramatically lit from above. Image: Automobili Lamborghini.
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