Lamborghini CEO: Luxury buyers have accepted a plug-in hybrid future

Luxury buyers are a fickle bunch. But Italian luxury brand Lamborghini seems to have figured them out.

Lamborghini just revealed its latest creation - an all-new plug-in hybrid version of its best-selling “super sports SUV,” dubbed the Urus SE. Good luck finding one, however, as the Urus SE is sold out - more than 5,000 units worth - through the end of 2025. Lamborghini is also coming off yet another record-breaking year.

While it may seem well-healed buyers don’t really care much for concerns like gas mileage - they do like the plug-in variant of the Urus. The Urus plug-in means they are going green, but it also means going fast. The Urus SE’s near 800-hp combined power sends the SUV to 0-60mph in just 3.4 seconds.

For Lamborghini and its CEO Stephan Winkelmann, the success of a plug-in hybrid doesn’t necessarily mean the company is delaying its full EV plans either, which is slated for the end of the decade.

“We live in the here and the now, so it's a bit useless to ask what is going to happen in five or even more years,” Winkelmann said to Yahoo Finance at an event for the Urus SE in New York, deflecting whether he and the company have changed EV rollout plans.

But one thing is for sure: His customers have accepted hybrids. “[Hybridization] was difficult to be accepted maybe five years ago for a super sports car manufacturer like us,” he said, adding that for now the buyers have “digested” a hybrid future, and they like it. “So the hybrids are ‘digested’ [by buyers] because we promise more performance and less CO2 emissions.”

The luxury market — and Lamborghini’s worth

While overall luxury buyers have been balking at certain goods purchases, Winkelmann says that is not the case for Lamborghini.

“First I have to say that there is no weakness in the [luxury] world [for us],” he said, adding, “We are in the best shape ever, we are outperforming most of [our peers] — and some are already in trouble — but we are still going strong.”

Winkelmann points to the work he and the team have done on the brand, the products, the life cycle of the cars, their residual value, and developing the order bank.

“We always looked to have something in front of us to be presented [that is] better than the promise [we made] to the luxury consumer.”

Lamborghini’s main rival, Ferrari, has had a bang-up year too. Ferrari reports first quarter earnings on May 7, and is, in essence, the measuring stick that Lamborghini uses to gauge its success.

While Lamborghini’s parent Volkswagen (VWAGY) doesn’t break out the Italian marque’s financial results, there are those that wonder what those numbers could be. And how valuable Lamborghini truly is.

For now it’s a mystery, as Winkelmann declined to answer whether the long-rumored Lamborghini IPO, was in the cards.

Pras Subramanian is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. You can follow him on Twitter and on Instagram.

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