Page 17 - LAMBORGHINI PR REPORT - January 2024

1/30/24, 1:08 PM Ferrari or Tesla, Lucid or Lamborghini: Which EV is more electrifying?
The next-gen M3 will also be battery-powered, says BMW development boss Frank Weber, and
one of its key ingredients is a new Heart of Joy control unit that allegedly ensures there’s no loss
of character in the absence of a sonorous petrol engine.

“This is a controller that has taken the last 20 or 30 years of our experience into a control unit.
Everything that is driving-performance related, chassis-control related, propulsion power train
related is now in one integrated control unit,” says Weber.

“We do it ourselves – we don’t buy it. The software is proprietary. This is why we talk about it. We
say, see, this will enable driving-dynamics functions that you will love. Some of you have an
interest in ‘the ultimate driving machine’ – you will see functions in [the Heart of Joy] that are
crazy.”

'It is our duty is to tap into our vast engineering expertise'

Audi’s chief marketing officer, Henrik Wenders, says the shift to electrification provides new
opportunities for performance-focused models. “Apart from the terrific acceleration, it’s also
about a premium driving experience whereby there’s a real feeling of precision, and every detail
being superbly executed.”

“So, at Audi, our duty is to tap into our vast engineering expertise to deliver all these attributes in
our electric vehicles,” Wenders adds.

If you’ve ever sat in a fast modern-day EV – such as a Porsche Taycan Turbo S or Audi RS e-tron
GT – and experienced the violence of a full launch-control start (especially two or three times in a
row), you’ll know first-hand that it borders on being physically uncomfortable. The accelerative
capabilities of high-performance EVs are already beginning to challenge what the human body
can bear without eliciting feelings of nausea.

There’s also the issue of safely deploying the extreme performance of high-powered EVs on
public roads with other motorists in the vicinity. When a car is capable of going from standstill to
100kph in under 3 seconds, it demands a lot of the driver, especially if traction is overwhelmed on
a wet road, or an obstacle suddenly appears in the car’s path.

We’re reaching a point where simply extracting more power and acceleration from a car is no
longer necessary or prudent. The consensus among the premium performance brands is that it’s
more important to engineer a package that matches straight-line speed with agility, tactility and
sensual appeal. This is where the current supercar elite – Ferrari, Lamborghini et al – aspire to
remain a cut above the EV horde.

Updated: January 23, 2024, 7:57 AM

ELECTRIC VEHICLES

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